Why does sugar free food and drinks make us have to use the bathroom more often than if we ate the sugared version?

Question

Why does sugar free food and drinks make us have to use the bathroom more often than if we ate the sugared version?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Sugar free foods and drinks often have artificial sweeteners in them. The way these sweeteners cause diarrhea is by pulling water into your guts (osmotic diarrhea is the fancy-pants way to describe it).

To give you an analogy, imagine the water in your intestines as a train station. Water is in line to catch the train on the PooPoo Express. What these artificial sweeteners do is allow for more trains to come to the station so that more water can get on the train.

Fun fact: Osmotic diarrhea is the same principle why people who are lactose intolerant get diarrhea when they eat dairy. The lactose draws the water into the GI tract to cause diarrhea in the same fashion.