Effects of caloric or non-caloric sweetener long-term consumption on taste preferences and new aversive learning.

Food palatability and caloric content are crucial factors in guiding diet choice and amount consumed; as a result, sweet caloric tastes are associated with a positive hedonic value. Recent evidence in rodents indicates that consumption of artificial (non-caloric) sweeteners, in which sweet taste is dissociated from normal caloric consequences, could induce changes in energy and body weight regulation, suggesting that sweeteners not only modify intake and appetitive behavior, but could also change taste-learning processes. Particularly, there are different properties in some artificial sweeteners, like saccharin, that might differ from sugar in the reward responses that, after long-term consumption, could also be associated with the inability to learn new negative consequences related to the same taste.