Common sweetener in low-calorie foods linked to weight gain!

New York: Do you know that the commonly used as a sugar-replacement sweetener in low-calorie foods can lead to obesity? Well, researchers have found that common sweetener, erythritol, which is used in low-calorie foods, may increase the weight and fat mass in young adults.

The study has revealed that erythritol can be metabolised by and even produced in the human body.

Erythritol is found naturally in pears and watermelons and increasingly used as a food additive.

In the study, erythritol - a metabolite- was found elevated at the beginning of the year in college freshers who went on to gain weight, fat and abdominal fat compared with their peers with stable weight.

These students showed a 15-fold higher blood erythritol at the start of the year compared with their counterparts who were stable or lost weight and fat mass over the academic year, the researchers said.

Patricia Cassano, professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University in New York said,"About 75 per cent of young adults experiences weight gain during the transition from high school to college."

Weight gain has been associated with various diseases like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and the like.

Cassano added, "With the finding of a previously unrecognised metabolism of glucose to erythritol and given the erythritol-weight gain association, further research is needed to understand whether and how this pathway contributes to weight-gain risk."

The finding was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(With IANS inputs)