Dr. Shanon Casperson recently published an article about the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks has on our metabolism. The peer review experiment consisted of asking volunteers to spend 24-hours in a metabolic chamber on two different occasions. On one occasion the volunteers ate a 15% protein diet and the other visit they increased the protein to 30%. During their consumption of their meals each participant ate a sugar sweetened drink or an artificially sweetened drink. Dr. Casperson reported in her article that regardless of your protein percentage drinking a sugar-sweetened drink decreased fat use, and diet-induced thermogenesis (heat production). When the drink was paired with a protein-rich meal, this combination further decreased fat use and heat production by more than 40%. The research suggests that there is an implication that this combination (enrich protein + sweetened drink) results a reduction of our metabolic efficiency thus increasing a greater tendency to make/store fat.
By Dr. Shanon Casper. (2017). Sugar-sweetened drinks and your metabolism. Retrieved from https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2017/07/21/sugar-sweetened-drinks-and-your-metabolism/