Background and objective: The role of sugars in solutions on subjective appetite and food intake (FI) has received little investigation in children. Therefore, we examined the effect of isocaloric solutions (200 kcal/250 ml) of sugars including sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup-55 (HFCS) or glucose, compared with a non-caloric sucralose control, on subjective appetite and FI in 9- to 14-year-old normal weight (NW) boys.
Participants and methods: NW boys (n=15) received each of the test solutions, in random order, 60 min before an ad libitum pizza meal. Subjective appetite was measured at baseline (0 min), and 15, 30, 45 and 60 min.
Results: Only glucose (P=0.003), but neither sucrose nor HFCS, reduced FI compared with the sucralose control. This led to a higher cumulative energy intake, compared with sucralose, after sucrose (P=0.009) and HFCS (P=0.01), but not after glucose. In all treatment sessions, subjective average appetite increased from baseline to 60 min, but change from baseline average appetite was the highest after sucrose (P<0.005). Furthermore, sucrose (r=-0.59, P=0.02) and HFCS (r=-0.56, P=0.03), but not glucose, were inversely associated with test meal FI when the treatment dose (200 kcal) was expressed on a body weight (kg) basis.
Conclusions: Change from baseline subjective average appetite was the highest after sucrose, but only the glucose solution suppressed FI at the test meal 60 min later in NW boys.