Do foods made with fat substitutes actually make us fatter?

Yes, according to a study by Purdue University researchers who discovered fat substitutes not only don’t help consumers lose weight, but they may actually help them pack on pounds.

The study, reported in a blog in the Washington Post, looked at two groups of rats — one fed a high-fat diet, the other fed a low-fat one. The high-fat diet group was further divided into two more groups including one fed high-fat, high-calorie Pringles chips in addition to its regular food, and the other given those same chips some days and low-calorie Pringles made with olestra on other days. Olestra is a fat substitute with no calories.

“The rats that alternated between the full-fat and olestra-containing chips ate more food overall, gained more weight, and grew more fatty tissue than did the rats that ate only full-fat, higher-calorie chips,” Jennifer LaRue Huget reports in her blog.

“Okay, so it’s just a rat study. But rats and humans have similar biological responses to food,” she writes.

To read the full Washington Post blog, Go Here Now.