Effects of Consuming Sugar-Sweetened Beverages With Meals for 10 Weeks

The study is designed as a prospective, blinded diet intervention study during which the participants consume either fructose- or glucose-sweetened beverages (25% of energy) with meals. Experimental procedures, including 24-hour serial blood sampling, 26-h stable isotoped infusions, post-heparin blood collection, gluteal biopsies, metabolic rate monitoring, computed tomography scans of the abdomen, and Oral Glucose Tolerance and Disposal Tests, are performed during baseline and at the end of a 10-week intervention period at the UC Davis School of Medicine/Sacramento Veterans Affairs Medical Center Clinical Research Center (CCRC). During the 2-week inpatient baseline period, subjects are served energy balanced diets containing 15% of energy as protein, 30% as fat, and 55% as complex carbohydrate. Following the baseline period, the subjects reside at home for 8 weeks and consume their usual ad libitum diet along with 25% of energy requirements as fructose- or glucose-sweetened beverages. Subjects then return to the CCRC for the 2-week inpatient intervention period at the end of the study and are served energy-balanced diets containing 15% of energy as protein, 30% as fat, 30% as complex carbohydrate and 25% of energy as fructose- or glucose-sweetened beverage.

Inclusion criteria

• Self-report of stable body weight
• Women were post-menopausal based on a self-report of no menstruation for at least one year

Exclusion criteria

• evidence of diabetes
• renal or hepatic disease
• fasting serum TG concentrations >400 mg/dl
• hypertension (>140/90 mg Hg)
• surgery for weight loss
• individuals who smoked
• reported exercise of more than 3.5 hours/week at a level more vigorous than walking
• having used thyroid, lipid-lowering, glucose-lowering, anti-hypertensive, anti-depressant, or weight loss medications
• habitual ingestion of more than one sugar-sweetened beverage/day or more than two alcoholic beverages/day