Check out this article by Jen Mueller "Are Diet Soft Drinks Really A Better Alternative?"Essentially, she cites two studies that link diet soda drinking and metabolic syndrome.
One theory suggests that artificial sweeteners may lead to increased food intake because they alter our sense of taste and interfere with the body's ability to properly assess how many calories are in foods. Therefore, you end up eating more- and we know that overweight and obesity are risk factors for developing metabolic syndrome.
I do know that from personal observation, when I drink diet coke, I get hungrier in the afternoon. Also splenda gives me headaches (not the sweetner used in diet coke, but relevant in terms of artificial sweetner conversations). I gave up diet coke for probably a year and I've recently "been back on the sauce" as it were. I actually do like water, so its not an aversion to water, but more a desire for a caffeine boost and for the occasional taste and sense memory I associate with diet coke. Making green tea, adding stevia and lemon might be a better solution for my mid-afternoon caffeine cravings, but it takes commitment and foresight--something that can be hard when you leave for work at 6:20 a.m. Hmmm, though...it, the diet coke, hasn't been as good as I remembered. Maybe getting this monkey off my back will be easier a second time? Well, for now I have six left in the office. We'll see what I decide on Monday.
So, dear reader, do you have a love/hate relationship with diet soda?
I don't like coke or diet coke. I can drink diet mt. dew and dt. dr. pepper. But I avoid most sodas because of the soduim. If you super size a diet coke you still have to muliplte the sodium content by 5 servings even if is zero calories.
ReplyDeleteAnd soduim don't help if you are prone to retain water.