Background: Sugar intake, especially in liquid, correlates with obesity. Yet, whether it is a special cause of obesity is less clear. Few experimental studies exist.

Aim: To replicate the investigators' previous 4 week experiments on women with men over 8 weeks to ascertain if: they gain weight given sucrose soft drinks; mood is affected; energy intake is affected.

Participants: 80 men BMI 25-35, aged 30-55. Procedure: After a week of baseline, over eight weeks single blind 40 men received soft drinks containing sucrose (1650 KJ, 97g carbohydrate per day), 40 received control drinks. A three-day food diary with mood ratings and activity levels was completed during baseline and weeks 1, 4 and 8 of the experiment. Body mass was recorded weekly with other anthropometric measures.

Inclusion Criteria:

• BMI 25-35

Exclusion Criteria:

• Diabetes,
• other health problems,
• medication,
• dislike of soft drinks