Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet x, Diet y – These diet sodas claim to lose you weight. But the fact is opposite. They are not helping in controlling weight, the worst is they are not healthy at all. Diet drinks doe not contain real sugars (sucrose). They are sweetened with artificial sweeteners. Diet drinks are zero calories or very low calories. Both these facts could fool people into thinking diet drink or sodas will not gain weight and healthy. But the truth is not
Artificial sweeteners currently approved by FDA are:
- Acesulfame potassium (Sunett, Sweet One)
- Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)
- Neotame
- Saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet’N Low)
- Sucralose (Splenda)
Artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes are not risk free and may not be healthy at all. Here are the facts –
2011/02: Researchers from Miami University reported that people who drink diet soda daily had increased risk of cardiovascular disease by 61% compared to people who do not drink diet drinks every day.
2010/08: Danish researchers discovered that pregnant women who drink diet soda everyday has a higher chance at 38% of giving birth prematurely.
2008/02: Purdue University scientists reported that eating disserts containing artificial sweetener will interfere with normal metabolism and can gain you weight instead of lose you weight
A new study recently published at American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Scientific Sessions by researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas further proved this. The researchers found that those who reported drinking diet soda had 70% greater increases in waistline growth than non-drinkers. Among frequent drinkers — those who consumed two or more diet sodas a day — waistline growth was 500% greater than among non-drinkers. Researchers said their results were adjusted for other contributing factors like diabetes status, leisure-time physical activity level and age.
In another study presented at the ADA meeting, researchers found an link between consumption of aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in many diet drinks, and elevated glucose levels in mice. This observation indicated that diet sodas are not very healthy, especially for the people who already have diabetes.
Then what is the best drink though? Very, very simple, the best drink is water, natural fruit juices, nonfat milk, soymilk, green tea.
