Day 129- Diet Soda...Really?

So here is my rambling on what I believe to be the best marketed, worse beverage out there, diet soda. First of all Diet Soda just tastes disgusting! The overly sweet beverage, has nothing positive going for it. Honestly I'm not a fan of any soda, but diet I think if an even worse choice.

What is my issue with diet soda?

First of all, yes, there are less calories in diet soda than there are in regular soda, but research has failed to establish a connection with weight loss and diet drinks. In a study from the Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, researchers tracked 474 people, all 65 to 74 years old, for nearly a decade. They measured the subjects' height, weight, waist circumference, and diet soft drink intake every 3.6 years. They concluded that the waists of those who drank diet soft drinks grew 70% more than those who avoided the artificially sweetened stuff, and people who drank two or more servings a day had waist circumference increases that were five times larger than non-diet consumers.

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

So how is it possible that a lower calorie drink can cause more weight gain?

Here are two studies done on rats from Purdue University that show that calorie consumption is increased when they consumed artificial sweeteners, especially in liquid form:

• The first group of rats were given two liquids, both of which contained natural high-calorie sweeteners
• The second group of rats were given two liquids, one that was sweetened with saccharin
• Both groups were given a sweet, high-calorie chocolate-flavored snack after 10 days into the study

Findings from the study were that the rats that were given the artificially flavored liquids had a more difficult time differentiating their calorie intake and displayed the tendency to overeat. The rats given artificially sweetened drinks were found to consume three times more calories than rats that didn't receive any sweeteners in their drinks.

The second study:

• For 30 days two groups of rats were fed their regular food along with a high-calorie supplement
• One group was given a supplement similar the heavy consistency of chocolate pudding
• The other group was given a supplement that had the consistency of chocolate milk

Findings from this study showed that the rats that were given the chocolate milk-like supplement experienced a notable weight gain over the rats who received the pudding-like supplement. They concluded that the rats who were given the milk-like supplement had a harder time estimating calories than the rats that were given the pudding-like supplement.

Researchers compared the results of this study to the Pavlovian theory where dogs were conditioned to associate the ringing of a bell to food. Researchers also stated that the rats in the study showed a similar relationship between the taste or texture of a food and the number of calories it contained.

The artificial sweetness may trick your taste buds into thinking that they are getting real sugar, but your brain knows better. The brain registers that the sweet taste doesn't come with the all the calories it expected, and goes on a search for those missing calories, which can cause additional food cravings or more diet soda. It has also been shown that artificial sweeteners cause the body to raise insulin levels just like it does with natural sugars, which can inhibit your body's ability to burn fat. So in the end even though diet soda contains less calories, it is the body's hormonal response to those calories that determine weight gain or not.

Alright, we have covered the false assumption that diet soda will help you to maintain your weight goals, but even more importantly soda and diet soda contain no nutritional benefits whatsoever! In fact soda can lead to some pretty devastating health effects, such as:

• Osteoporosis- the phosphorus in soda can block the body's ability to use calcium
• Neutralize hydrochloric acid in the stomach-phosphorus neutralizes stomach acid, which interferes with healthy digestion
• Sugar (both real and artificial)- increases insulin levels, increase blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease, weight gain, premature aging, to name a few
• Aspartame- has been linked to side-effects such as brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders, or seizures.
• Sucralose- prevents healthy bacteria, to learn more about this sugar supplement, click here to read my previous blog on this fake sugar.
• Tap water- the main ingredient in bottled soft drinks- can carry chemicals such as chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and others

For additional articles on the dangers of diet soda, check out the links below:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/04/diet-soda-addiction-_n_830997.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/07/09/soda-dangers-part-two.aspx

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP