Davidson and Swithers' findings are based on two studies.

In the first study, two groups of rats were given two different sweet-flavored liquids. In the first group, both liquids were sweetened with natural high-calorie sweeteners so there was a consistent relationship between sweet taste and calories. For the second group, one of the flavored liquids was artificially sweetened with non-caloric saccharin so that the relationship between sweet taste and calories was inconsistent.

After 10 days of exposure to the flavors, the rats were allowed to eat a small amount of a sweet, high-calorie chocolate flavored snack. The researchers compared the two groups' ability to compensate for the calories contained in the chocolate snack. The rats that had experienced the inconsistent relationship between sweet taste and calories were less able to compensate for the calories contained in the snack and ate more than the rats that had experienced the consistent relationship between sweetness and caloric intake.

"This suggests that experience with the inconsistent relationship reduced the natural ability of the rats to use sweet taste to judge the caloric content of the snack," Swithers said.

In the second study, two groups of rats were given a high-calorie dietary supplement along with their regular food every day for 30 days. Although the supplements were identical in calories and nutritive content, they differed in viscosity. For one group the supplement had the consistency of thick chocolate pudding, whereas for the other group, the supplement was similar to chocolate milk. Davidson and Swithers found that over the course of the study, the rats given the milk-like supplement gained significantly more weight than the rats given the more viscous, pudding-like supplement.

"This finding indicates that rats are less able to estimate and compensate for the calories contained i
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Contact: Amy Patterson-Neubert,
apatterson@purdue.edu
765-494-9723
Purdue University
29-Jun-2004