A new study has been published, looking into the effects of sugar replacements and artificial sweeteners on the body and metabolism, and it appears that diet drinks actually make you hungrier?!

Researchers at the University of Sydney tested the effects of sucralose on eating habits in flies, and then in mice. The flies and mice that consumed sucralose were found to be 'eating a lot more,' said lead researcher Associate Professor Greg Neely.

When consuming very sweet foods, the body expects a high calorie intake too. As diet drinks often contain no calories (as is usually part of their appeal) the space between what the body expects and what it receives in reality, leaves you in a kind of starvation mode.

In order to rectify the space between calorie and sugar intake, your brain thinks that you're missing calories and so craves more food.

Models eating doughnuts - because diet coke makes you hungdrypinterest
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Not only do you think you're hungry, but the report revealed that the artificial sugar actually makes food taste better.

'The pathway we discovered is part of a conserved starvation response that actually makes nutritious food taste better when you are starving,' Associate Professor Neely told said in a press release.

Of course, this study was conducted in flies and mice - not humans - however the researchers suggested the mice results (in addition to the tests on flies to represent animals) demonstrate how sweeteners could affect hunger in mammals.

So pretend sugar might be just as bad as real sugar, considering that the sweet drinks actually stimulate appetite, whilst simultaneously making everything taste amazing.