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To examine the importance of energy density (ED) as a major factor that may influence human appetite and energy intake (EI).

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• The original logic behind the marketing of intense sweeteners was that they would reduce overall EI by replacing sugars in certain foods, particularly in beverages. However, there has been considerable controversy as to whether intense sweeteners effectively reduce overall EI. This is mainly based on conceptual and methodological issues.
• Blundell, et al suggested that sweetness is a potent stimulant of feeding and acts as a sensory cue that anticipates the readily available energy derived from sugars
• Studies that examined the effects of decreasing the energy density of the diet with intense sweeteners include Porikos, et al. Aspartame was effective at reducing EI (by 15%) relative to control diets. The reduction in EI did not produce a negative energy balance, as EIs exceeded 12mJ per day in sedentary lean men on the control diets. There is a lack of studies covering 10 days or more.
• Relatively short-term reductions in EI by foods of low ED have rarely been found to induce weight loss in excess of two to three kg in longer interventions. There is little epidemiological evidence that artificial sweetener consumption correlates with lower BMIs or that increased artificial sweetener consumption in the population has contributed to any reduction in the prevalence of overweight or obesity.
• Mela noted intense sweeteners have been used as a food additive rather than exclusively as a sugar substitute. This would diminish the impact of intense sweeteners in reducing dietary ED.
• Soft drink market: It may be possible that covert replacement of sugars with artificial sweeteners is more likely to decrease EI if subjects can only alter the amount they eat of a diet of fixed composition, rather than having access to a variety of familiar foods. The reduction of ED of foods by substituting sugars with artificial sweeteners may lead to a cephalic phase stimulation to eat. 
• Blundell and Hill reported that aspartame-sweetened drinks can actually stimulate the appetite and also suggested that sweetness without calories provides a sensory cue for CHO energy, which leads to cephalic phase physiological changes that anticipate EI. Intense sweeteners have only been found to stimulate intake when a less sweet food has been compared with an isoenergetically equivalent food to which sweetness has been added and not when two foods of differing ED but the same level of sweetness are compared.
• Black and Anderson report the use of aspartame-sweetened water leads to an acute short-term increase in subjective appetite in lean men, but the aspartame-sweetened carbonated soft drinks induce a transient suppression of appetite in similar subjects over a similar timeframe.
• Mattes did a meta-analysis of short-term laboratory studies altering the energy content (and often energy density) of foods and drinks and found caloric drinks generally do not appear to induce the same degree of caloric compensation as solid food. If this is true in real life, then reducing the ED of drinks, using artificial sweeteners is likely, on balance, to reduce the risk of consuming excess energy from beverages.

• There is little evidence that reducing the ED of foods by substituting sugars with artificial sweeteners reliably decreases appetite or reduces EI, but it may prevent any excess EI that would occur when the calories were provided as drinks
• There are findings that indicate aspartame-sweetened drinks have stimulated appetite and less often EI, but there is little evidence to suggest that sweetness reduces intake.

• Article is targeted mainly to discussing energy density
• There is a limited section on reducing dietary energy density with intense sweeteners.