[maxerickson]

It is too bad that they lacked the resources to include sucrose in the long term study (because why not).

It's also confusing that they never discuss (as far as I have seen anyway) how they determined the levels of sweeteners in the sugar drinks. I would like to see a study where the drinks had equivalent calories/volume, I can see where rats with access to water might avoid syrup but prefer a less sweet sugar drink. Even given some good explanation for the different calorie loads, it would still be interesting to see how it factored in.