Washington (PTI): It seems that the debate on whether artificial sweeteners aid in weight-control refuses to die down, with a new study claiming that the sugar substitutes can help only if people don't overcompensate by eating lots of high-calorie foods.

Researchers in the US have based their findings on a review of some 224 professional studies of the effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on appetite, food intake and weight, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported in its latest edition.

Acknowledging the literature is actually rife with contradictory reports, the researchers concluded that "taken together, the evidence summarised by us and others suggests that if non-nutritive sweeteners are used as substitutes for higher-energy-yielding sweeteners, they have the potential to aid in weight management."

Lead researcher Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina said that these no-calorie and very-low-calorie sweeteners could aid in weight control "only if people do not overcompensate by eating lots of high-calorie foods".

"Some people use non-nutritive sweeteners as a crutch; other use them to help create a healthy diet," Popkin was quoted by the media as saying.

Forty years ago, saccharin and cyclamates came under scrutiny after a study had found that the combined artificial sweeteners caused cancer in laboratory rats, leading to a ban in 1969 on cyclamates, a sweetener that is still marketed in more than 100 countries.

Even in a recent study in rats, researchers at Purdue University, compared the results when the animals were given either caloric sweeteners or saccharin with a regular diet.

Those given saccharin gained more weight and more body fat because they overcompensated for the noncaloric sweetener.

"We don't know if humans react in the same way because no one has tested this idea in humans," the study's lead author Susan Swithers had said.