Diet soda linked to weight gain
If the FDA won't go after diet sodas for all the dangerous chemicals they contain, maybe the FTC can take action for false advertising.
There's nothing "diet" about diet sodas. After all, studies have linked them to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart problems, and more.
And now, yet another study confirms that people who drink the most diet soda have the biggest bellies.
Researchers from the University of Texas medical school examined data on 474 seniors who took part in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, and found that the waistlines of those who drank diet soda grew 70 percent more than those who didn't drink the stuff during the average follow-up of nearly 10 years.
And the more they drank, the more they grew: The researchers say those who drank two or more diet sodas a day had five times the increase in belly size than those who drank no soda, according to the study presented at a recent American Diabetes Association meeting.
In real terms, that means a diet soda habit will put you into pants with a waistline two inches bigger than the ones you're wearing now.
So much for "diet."
The researchers didn't stop there. They also found a link between aspartame -- the main sweetener used in diet sodas -- and diabetes.
Researchers fed mice prone to diabetes either a high-fat diet or a high-fat diet with aspartame for three months, and found that the rodents that got the sweetener had higher levels of fasting glucose.
The researchers say these mice were essentially prediabetic.
But no one should be surprised by any of this, because diet soda has been linked to serious health problems time and again.
One recent study found that women who drink the most diet soda have a 61 percent higher risk of vascular events such as heart attack and stroke than women who don't drink diet soda.
Another recent study found that the caramel color used in both diet and regular sodas contains high levels of chemical compounds linked to cancer.
In addition, soda cans are lined with BPA -- the hormone-like chemical linked to everything from obesity to sexual problems.
Of course, sugar-packed regular soda is every bit as bad for you -- and don't buy into the hype over "real sugar" colas or Mexican Coke.
If you just have to have to have some fizz in your water, try plain old seltzer instead.
No one's ever gotten fat or sick on that.
Related articles of interest:
Drinking Diet Soda Doubles Your Risk of Stroke
The 10 Worst Food Ingredients You Should Avoid Like the Plague
Are Toxic Chemicals on YOUR Menu Tonight?
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Edward Martin writes House Calls, a daily letter chronicling the most cutting-edge alternative methods for beating diabetes and cancer, to the latest FDA foul-ups and Big Pharma conspiracies.
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Comments
Cordier
Perhaps is it better,from time to time, to drink a regular soda than a diet one if...It is an insane surge!
Lori
We just don't have a grip on the reality that when man tries to improve something that occurs naturally, like artificial sweeteners, we screw it up. The body is hard-wired to store calories from sugar for quick energy based on the information that goes from our tongue to our brain and out to body organs. When we eat something 200 - 600 times sweeter than sugar that has no calories, we've screwed up a natural process. The liver will keep on storing other calories as fat, the pancreas wiggs out, and we keep craving carbs. Not to mention the fact that artificial sweeteners are neurotoxins...
Brian
Everytime I read stories like this, I fail to see two things that break the deal for me:
1) "those who drank diet soda grew 70 percent more than those who didn't drink the stuff" — so what was the rest of their diets like? Perhaps they pig out on everything, so they drink "diet" to "help"?
"Diet" is loaded with nasty things, sure. I wouldn't drink it. But show me a *direct link* between the chemical and the outcome.
2) When trashing regular soda, you ignore that there's a third way—you can enjoy regular soda with sugar, so long as you treat it like a treat, and not a replacement for water. A can or two of soda a week never killed anyone.
"Moderation is the key" is probably the medical advice of the millennium, yet no one wants to listen.
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