They have been promoted as takeaway food and some even include claims such as “they have been shown to help reduce appetite!”
But many Americans say they feel hungrier. after They eat a protein bar.
There are Reddit forums and social media videos on the topic, where users say they were left “extra hungry” or ended up consuming up to 20 in one sitting.
Many gym goers and nutritionists will advise their clients to eat protein bars because protein is more satiating than the other two macronutrients: fats and carbohydrates.
But registered dietitians believe the culprit is sucralose, a sweetener used in the most popular protein bars Quest, Barebells and Fulfill.
Many fans of Quest bars and other protein bars have said that they made them feel hungrier than before, which dietitians attribute to sucralose.
Katie Lopez, a registered dietitian in New Hampshire, told DailyMail.com: ‘Personally, I don’t eat sucralose and minimize food additives and packaged and processed foods.
He added that it “causes binge eating.”
She recommended bars with at least 10g of protein and whole food ingredients, such as Aloha and Rx bars, that do not use sucralose.
Eating something artificially sweetened can lead to reaching for more food, even if the sweetened item contains a high amount of protein.
The lack of calories from sucralose along with the extreme sweetness’other fuels ‘Foraging behavior’ and the absence of a sense of reward in the brain can make a person feel like they need to eat more.
He explains the dozens of fitness forums where people have sought answers about their accelerated appetite after eating a Quest protein bar.
One Reddit user said: “After introducing and loving a Quest Bar about a day ago a couple of weeks ago, I definitely feel like I’m having a harder time staying under my calorie limit because I’m hungrier throughout the day “.
Another said: ‘Quest bars make me hungry… I suspect they are increasing my glucose level. My head hurts after eating one.
Despite their popularity and promise to combat hunger on the go, protein bars with sucralose can actually increase cravings for sweet foods.
yale researchers saying: ‘Repeated exposure trains flavor preference. There is a strong correlation between a person’s usual intake of a flavor and their preferred intensity for that flavor.
No-calorie sweeteners are extremely popular for their cost-effectiveness (a small amount beats real sugar in terms of sweetness) and their reported benefits over eating real products.
Sucralose, marketed as Splenda, is about 600 times sweeter than real sugar. Instead of satisfying a sweet tooth, it has been shown in studies to make people want to eat more.
Many popular protein bar brands, such as Quest, Barebells, and Fulfill, use sucralose in their bars.
However, the evidence supporting health claims touting the benefits of artificial sweeteners is mixed. Several studies have shown that animals fed a diet rich in sucralose eat more food later despite eating enough calories to be full.
Matthew Kadey, an Ontario-based registered dietitian, saying: ‘For women and people with obesity, drinking artificially sweetened beverages can trick the brain into feeling hungry; The brain may sense that the body didn’t get the sugar calories it expected from the sweet drink.
“This, in turn, can result in people consuming more calories, not fewer, throughout the day.”
Sucralose, sold under the brand name Splenda, is about 600 times sweeter than zero-calorie table sugar. In use since 1999, sucralose has been an option for people looking to reduce their sugar consumption.
Sucralose can be found everywhere, from baked goods to drinks and chewing gum.
People intuitively turn to zero-calorie sweeteners when trying to lose weight. But several large-scale studies have shown a positive relationship between artificial sweetener consumption and weight gain.
A growing body of research shows that artificial sweeteners like sucralose do not activate the food reward pathway in the brain because they do not provide calories like sugar does.
Sucralose contains no calories. Lack of balance between calories and sweetness tricks the body into eating more sweet foods
Eating artificial sweeteners is generally a safer bet for diabetics than real sugar, but studies on sucralose have shown that it can increase blood sugar levels, causing a spike and subsequent crash.
Artificial sweeteners do not activate what scientists call the post-ingestive component: processes such as digestion, nutrient absorption and the release of satiety hormones.
Counterintuitively, eating too much artificial sweetener can lead to weight gain.
A 2021 report in Open JAMA Network Put sucralose to the test. Researchers at the University of Southern California enrolled 74 study subjects who drank 300 milliliters of a sucrose-sweetened beverage (table sugar), a sucralose-sweetened beverage, or water as a control over three visits.
Two hours after drinking, the researchers performed MRIs to look specifically at how areas of the subjects’ brains involved in appetite control responded to images of high-calorie foods like a hamburger and donuts.
They also measured blood sugar and levels of insulin and other metabolic hormones in the blood. They then tracked the amount of food consumed at a snack buffet provided at the end of each session.
The scans showed greater activity in parts of the brain involved in appetite and cravings in both women and obese people who drank sucralose compared to those who drank drinks sweetened with real sugar.
Women who drank sucralose-sweetened beverages also ate more at the buffet after each session.
And despite being sugar-free and considered safe for people with diabetes, a study published in the journal Diabetes care showed that sucralose dramatically increased blood sugar levels in obese people whose bodies were particularly sensitive to changes in insulin.
Ms Lopez said: ‘You can measure the glucose response to consuming a protein bar using a (continuous glucose monitor) or a finger stick. If a rapid increase is sown in a short period of time followed by a rapid decrease, this will contribute to hunger.”