Science

What!? That makes no sense.

They saw an association between sweetener intake and change in fat over 25 years. Not relative to the population, relative to their past selves. How would a weight loss tool increasing your body fat over 25 years be obvious?

"This study showed that habitual, long-term intake of total and individual artificial sweetener intakes are related to greater volumes of adipose tissue, commonly known as body fat," said Brian Steffen, PhD, MSCR, a professor in the Department of Surgery at the U of M Medical School and co-investigator on the funded grant. "This was found even after accounting for other factors, including how much a person eats or the quality of one's diet."

That's what makes this study so interesting.

I think it is much more likely that the way a human being metabolizes food is different then what happens in bomb calorimeter and trying to draw conclusions based on said device is not very helpful to understanding human physiology, but then again i am just some schmuck on the interwebs and i dont even play a scientist on tv

But satiety is very complex, and it's possible that sweetener replacements make people hungrier in the long run, leading to weight gain.