A lot of posts have criticized the study on the basis that it was done on rats and not humans. However, one advantage in doing a study like this on rats rather than humans is that, presumably, the psychological effects are greatly diminished. A rat won't eat more just because he thinks he can without getting fat since he was "good" and drank a diet soda instead of a sugar soda. So if he eats more, it's much more likely that the overconsumption is due to a physiological effect of the artificial sweetener than a psychological rationalization. It would be much more difficult to design a human study to discern such a difference. Of course now that the phenomenon has been observed in rats, the next step is to design such a study to see if what appears to hold true for rats holds true for humans as well. The rat study doesn't convince me that diet soda will physiologically cause humans to want to consume more calories, but it helps persuade me that it's possible.
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