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Topical Area: Obesity

Obesity (Poster Session)

(P31-025-23) An Overview of Reviews on the Association of Low Calorie Sweetener Consumption With Body Weight and Adiposity

Monday, July 24, 2023
12:45 PM – 1:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board 247
Disclosure(s):
Kelly A. Higgins, PhD, MPH: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMA) on low calories sweeteners (LCS) have been published in recent years, concluding that LCS are beneficial, detrimental, or have no effect on body weight. An overview of reviews on the association of LCS consumption with body weight and adiposity was conducted to highlight how different populations, intervention/exposures, comparators, and study designs produce varying conclusions regarding the efficacy of LCS for body weight management.

Methods: Systematic searches of PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Scopus were conducted to identify systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCT) and/or non-randomized studies (NRS) investigating the association between LCS consumption and body weight related outcomes among generally healthy populations or populations with diseases prevalent among Western populations (PROSPERO Registration Number: CRD42022351200). The Populations, Interventions/Exposures, Comparators, Outcomes, and Study Designs or Settings [PI(E)COS] criteria and topline results were extracted from each eligible review identified in the search.

Results: Of the 1,424 results recovered in the systematic search, a total of 50 SRMA evaluated the association between LCS and body weight related outcomes, summarizing results from RCT and/or NRS. There was considerable lack of overlap of studies included within each review; SRMA of RCT identified upwards of ~70% of available studies and SRMA of NRS identified up to ~40% of the available studies. This was attributed, in part, to differences in the [PI(E)COS] criteria between the reviews.

Conclusions: Systematic reviews investigating the effect of LCS on body weight implement different approaches, methodologies, and criteria to answer the same research question, resulting in disparate results and conclusions. Future analyses will investigate the impact of these methodological differences on the observed results from these SRMA.

Funding Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service; Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners Committee