The Problem with Diet Drinks
Diet sodas are advertised a healthy option, they have no calories, sugars or fats so they must be ok?
Yes they have no sugar but research has shown the drinking diet soda is linked to the development of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Just one serving of artificially sweetened diet drinks per day increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 8–13%.
One study on artificial sweeteners found that there is a correlation between drinking diet drinks and increased risk of dementia and strokes. The study found that just drinking just one diet soda a day increased the risk by three times
Diet drink consumption also increases the occurrence of kidney disease, with a study of 15, 368 people finding those that drank more than seven diet drinks per week doubled their risk of developing kidney disease. This is thought to be due to the increased acid load on the kidney, from the high phosphorous levels in soda drinks,
The sweeteners used in diet drinks are also a concern with many studies showing they may be unsafe. An example is the sweetener Aspartame, which in large doses can cause a rapid increase in brain levels of phenylalanine. Phenylalanine can increase the feelings of anxiety and jitteriness increasing symptoms of anxiety, insomnia and or other mental health condition. It can also cause drug interactions with monoamine oxidase inhibitors, neuroleptics or medications that contain levodopa.
Artificial sweeteners also alter your gut flora; this changes your gut-brain connection leading to increased mood disorders, reduced immune function, modified hunger signals, altered energy metabolism.
Citric acid is added to balance out the unnatural high sweetness of artificial sweeteners, leading to increased corrosion of tooth enamel. To make them palatable, they are packed with colours, preservatives and flavours that are related to allergies and increased inflammation within the body.
And if it is a Cola Drink, then it will contain between 35 mg to 46mg of caffeine. The high caffeine and phosphorous levels increase bone loss and reduce calcium absorption, increasing your risk of osteoporosis.
But I hear you say they help with weight loss.
Diet drinks trick the brain into thinking it is getting glucose, but it is not. The brain, however, adapts to this altering your hunger hormones, altering sweet receptors and triggering dopamine responses the brain. This leads to you wanting to eat sweeter food and increases your signals of hunger, leading to you eating more and weight gain.
The bottom line, this is not a naturally occurring food so has no place in a healthy diet.
References
Imamura, F., O’Connor, L., Ye, Z., Mursu, J., Hayashino, Y., Bhupathiraju, S. N., & Forouhi, N. G. (2015). Consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages, and fruit juice and incidence of type 2 diabetes: Systematic review, meta-analysis, and estimation of population attributable fraction. BMJ (Online), 351. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h3576
Kim, Y., & Je, Y. (2016). Prospective association of sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverage intake with risk of hypertension. Archives of Cardiovascular Diseases, 109(4), 242–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acvd.2015.10.005
