Sweet perception: ‘High intensity’ sweeteners are not that sweet or intense, suggests study

07-Sep-2014 - Last updated on 08-Sep-2014 at 11:04 GMT

"These ingredients are often marketed or described as 'high-intensity' sweeteners, but that's misleading," says John Hayes, who led the new study.

The taste of common sweeteners is often described as being much more intense than sugar, however new research has suggested that these sugar substitutes are not perceived to be any sweeter than sugar by consumers.

Writing in the International Journal of Obesity, a US-based team compared the taste of non-nutritive sweeteners that are often used as low- or no-calorie sugar substitutes with those of nutritive sweeteners, such as sugar, maple syrup and agave nectar.

The participants indicated they could perceive the non-nutritive sweeteners – like aspartame, acesulfameK, and RebA - at lower concentrations than real sugar, but the intensity of these sensations was no sweeter than sugar and other nutritive sweeteners, revealed the team – led by John Hayes of Penn State, USA.

"While you can detect non-nutritive sweeteners at lower levels than sugar, that doesn't really tell us anything about the perceived intensity of that sweetness," said Hayes, adding that the assumption that these sweeteners are excessively sweet may be the result of confusing potency and intensity.

"In terms of receptor biology, the potency of a substance describes the lowest concentration that activates a taste receptor, but this does not predict the intensity, or magnitude, of the response," Hayes commented.

Therefore, the team suggest that ability to detect sweetness of non-nutritive sweeteners at low levels is related to their potency, but not their intensity.

Sugar, on the other hand, is less potent but causes more intense sensations of sweetness, said Hayes.

"These ingredients are often marketed or described as 'high-intensity' sweeteners, but that's misleading," he said. "Our data confirm other work showing the maximal sweetness of low-cal sweeteners is often much lower than that of table sugar or other natural sweeteners, like maple syrup."

Study details

The researchers recruited 401 participants to take part in a series of taste tests held at the Sensory Evaluation Center at Penn State. Once the subjects were briefed on the study, they tasted between 12 and 15 separate samples that contained maple syrup, agave nectar and sucrose, as well as various concentrations of aspartame, sucralose, AceK and RebA.

Participants indicated that the caloric sweeteners all had higher sweetness ratings than the non-nutritive sweeteners.

The team also confirmed that the sweeteners did not seem to act as supernormal stimuli - a term first used by Nobel laureate Niko Tingergen to describe exaggerated stimuli that serve as triggers for innate behaviors.

“It is often claimed that nonnutritive sweeteners (NNS) are ‘sweeter than sugar’, with the implicit implication that high-potency sweeteners are supernormal stimuli that encourage exaggerated responses,” noted the research team – adding that some researchers have suggested that supernormal stimuli and the responses they provoke could be a factor in the obesity epidemic.

"We have evolved to like sweetness from before birth, so some people assume so-called 'high intensity' sweeteners hijack or over-stimulate our natural drive to consume sweet foods, causing us to overeat," Hayes noted.

"However, this view assumes that foods we eat today are more intense than those we would have been exposed to evolutionarily, and our data imply this isn't the case,” he said.

Hayes also suggested that the availability of highly desired foods may play a more important role in the obesity epidemic.

Source: International Journal of Obesity
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1038/ijo.2014.109
“Nonnutritive sweeteners are not supernormal stimuli”
Authors: R G Antenucci, J E Hayes