Recommended Web sites:

More information about artificial sweeteners—and the controversies surrounding them—is available at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_substitute (Wikipedia).

The National Cancer Institute reviews research related to the link between cancer and artificial sweeteners at www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners (U.S. National Institutes of Health).

You can find some basic facts about sugar at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar (Wikipedia).

To learn more about diabetes, visit www.diabetes.org (American Diabetes Association).

What's the Right Weight for Me?
www.kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/thought/fat_thin.html (KidsHealth for Kids).

Sohn, Emily. 2007. The buzz about caffeine. Science News for Kids (Sept. 19). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070919/Feature1.asp .

______. 2007. Sweet sticky science. Science News for Kids (March 14). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070314/Feature1.asp .

______. 2007. Eat out, eat smart. Science News for Kids (Feb. 7). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070207/Feature1.asp .

______. 2005. Screaming for ice cream. Science News for Kids (Aug. 10). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050810/Feature1.asp .

______. 2004. Packing fat. Science News for Kids (Oct. 27). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20041027/Feature1.asp .

______. 2004. Building a food pyramid. Science News for Kids (Feb. 18). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040218/Feature1.asp .

______. 2003. Turning to sweets, fats to calm the brain. Science News for Kids (Sept. 17). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20030917/Note2.asp .

Books recommended by SearchIt!Science:

[book]
Sugars — Rhoda Nottridge

Published by Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing, 1993.

Sugar helps food taste great and also provides you with quick energy. But too much sugar can be harmful. How much sugar does your body need? What does your body do with sugar once you eat it? Why does sugar make things taste sweet? With color photographs, diagrams, and cartoon illustrations, this book considers the different kinds of sugars and where they come from. The farming of sugarcane, other kinds of sweeteners, and the history of sugar are discussed. Also included are activities and recipes, as well as a metric-conversion chart, a glossary, an index, and a list of recommended readings.

[book]
Sugar Isn't Everything — Willo Davis Roberts

Published by Macmillan Publishing Co, 1987.

Eleven-year-old Amy can't understand what's happening to her. She's hungry and eats all the time, but she's still losing weight. And she's having other problems too—she's thirsty and tired and she's even started to wet the bed. One day she collapses and is rushed to the hospital. The doctors discover that she has diabetes. Learning to cope with this disease is the subject of a moving, information-filled novel. This book will be especially helpful for kids who have diabetes. Readers who don't have diabetes will gain a new understanding of the disease.

[book]
How Sweet It Is (and Was): The History of Candy — Ruth Freeman Swain

Published by Holiday House, 2003.

What was candy like before people learned to refine sugar? Would you like to attend a banquet where all the plates and goblets were made out of sugar? Where does chocolate come from? How has technology changed candy? Find the answers to these candied questions, and more, in this illustrated history of candy. Cartoonlike illustrations accompany the fact-filled text, which begins with the use of sugarcane in India. Learn about maple sugaring, the history of chocolate, early American "penny candy," and the accidental invention of fudge. If your sweet tooth is ready to nibble by the end of the book, a few recipes are appended.

From The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary and The American Heritage® Children's Science Dictionary.

calorie A unit used to measure the amount of energy released by food as it is digested in the body.

diabetes A disease in which a person has too much sugar in the blood. In one form of diabetes, the body does not produce enough of a hormone called insulin, which helps the body take up sugar from the blood. In another form, the body makes plenty of insulin, but ignores most of it, which again allows too much sugar to end up in the blood. If not treated, either form of diabetes can cause damage to nerves and blood vessels.

synthesis The formation of a chemical compound by combining simpler compounds or elements.

synthetic Produced by chemical synthesis, especially in a laboratory or other artificial environment.