Many people fighting obesity put top priority on avoiding fat. But that strategy often leads to a preference for sugar-laden “diet” foods that could be contributing to weight gain, according to a new study published online in the journal Physiology and Behavior.
UGA researchers found that rats fed a diet high in sugar, but low in fat—similar to popular diet foods—increased body fat mass when compared to rats fed a balanced rodent diet. The high-sugar diet induced a host of other problems, including liver damage and brain inflammation.
“Most so-called diet products containing low or no fat have an increased amount of sugar and are camouflaged under fancy names, giving the impression that they are healthy, but the reality is that those foods may damage the liver and lead to obesity,” said Krzysztof Czaja, associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Notably, the rats consuming high-sugar, low-fat diets didn’t consume significantly more calories than the rats who were fed a balanced diet, Czaja said.
The problem, rather, comes in the way the sugary intake alters the metabolism.
“In rats fed a low-fat, high-sugar diet, the efficiency of generating body fat is more than twice as high,” he said. “Rats consuming low-fat, high-sugar diets need less than half the number of calories to generate the same amount of body fat.”
This brief appeared in the fall 2017 issue of Research Magazine. The original press release is available at https://news.uga.edu/releases/article/diet-products-can-make-you-fat/.
