Does eating fewer sweet foods really reduce your preference for sweetness?

News summary

ScienceDaily reported a result that runs against a common assumption: eating fewer sweet-tasting foods does not necessarily make people like or crave sweetness less. In a six-month trial of 180 healthy adults assigned to low-, regular-, or high-sweetness diets, researchers found no meaningful differences in sweet preference, body weight, or several markers linked to diabetes and heart disease. The news conclusion was that public advice may need to focus more on reducing sugar and energy-dense foods rather than sweetness itself.

After six months, lower sweet-taste exposure did not produce a sustained reduction in liking for sweetness, and higher exposure did not consistently increase it. The trial also did not show meaningful persistent differences in energy intake, body weight, or several related health outcomes across groups. The central finding is that changing sweet-taste exposure alone may not be a simple way to reset sweet preference.

This does not mean that reducing added sugar is unimportant. The trial manipulated 'sweet-taste exposure,' which can come from sugars, low-calorie sweeteners, fruit, and dairy. The appropriate takeaway is that reducing sweetness alone may not automatically retrain sweet preference; recommendations about added sugar also address other issues such as energy density and dental health.

Participants were generally healthy adults with a normal average BMI, so results may differ in people with obesity, diabetes, or very different dietary patterns. The intervention lasted six months, and researchers did not provide every food eaten by participants.