Effects of Diet Coke
Effects of Diet Coke
By: Scott LeBan
Diet Coke is one of the most wrongly looked at products on the planet. Companies have fooled almost the entire world into thinking that it is healthy and free of consequences. This is completely untrue. Perhaps the craziest thing about this product is the fact that it causes extreme weight gain. Surprised? I'm sure you'll find it very surprising that a product that prides itself on being low in calories can actually make you gain weight.
At the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, researchers executed a ten year study following 474 diet soda drinkers. As it turns out, 70 percent of these subjects (aged 65 to 74) experienced weight gain compared to the €non-drinkers.€ Researchers specifically calculated that those who drank at least 2 cans a day watched their waists grow a whopping five times more than those who chose not to give in to the diet soda obsession.
Again, how can a beverage so magical as to be lacking calories and fat, push its faithful drinkers' stomachs over their pant waist lines? The researchers of the study have concluded that the artificial sweeteners are the silent killers. Some of these include Aspartame (Equal and NutraSweet), Sucralose (Splenda), and Saccharin (Necta Sweet). Perhaps these sound familiar, as many can be found in diet sodas; or, might I say, €hidden€ behind the nutrition labels.
Head obesity researcher, Sharon Fowler, at UT Health Center at San Diego states that €artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite, but unlike regular sugars they don't deliver something that will squelch the appetite.€ The researcher has also commented that these sweeteners may block brain cells that signal the stomach for reaching the €full point€ in eating. Furthermore, Dr. David Katz, Yale University's Prevention Research Center's Director, agrees with this thought and states: "In my 20 years of clinical practice, patients who consume diet soda tend to have more of a sweet tooth; to get more sweet cravings; to eat more foods with added sugar; and to like and eat more processed food than patients who avoid both regular and diet soda."
To further illustrate, an experiment was performed on mice to simulate the effects of Aspartame (a popular artificial sweetener in diet soda). In this experiment, one group of mice was fed food mixed with Aspartame, and the control group chowed down on their normal food. After three months, the results were conclusive: the mice that were eating the Aspartame chow had higher blood sugar levels than the control group's mice did. After reviewing the researchers' reports of the experiment, it was revealed that the sweeteners could €contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans."
So whether it is studying blood sugars in mice, or waist lines of human subjects, it appears that diet soda can in fact be linked to weight gain.
By: Scott LeBan
Diet Coke is one of the most wrongly looked at products on the planet. Companies have fooled almost the entire world into thinking that it is healthy and free of consequences. This is completely untrue. Perhaps the craziest thing about this product is the fact that it causes extreme weight gain. Surprised? I'm sure you'll find it very surprising that a product that prides itself on being low in calories can actually make you gain weight.
At the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, researchers executed a ten year study following 474 diet soda drinkers. As it turns out, 70 percent of these subjects (aged 65 to 74) experienced weight gain compared to the €non-drinkers.€ Researchers specifically calculated that those who drank at least 2 cans a day watched their waists grow a whopping five times more than those who chose not to give in to the diet soda obsession.
Again, how can a beverage so magical as to be lacking calories and fat, push its faithful drinkers' stomachs over their pant waist lines? The researchers of the study have concluded that the artificial sweeteners are the silent killers. Some of these include Aspartame (Equal and NutraSweet), Sucralose (Splenda), and Saccharin (Necta Sweet). Perhaps these sound familiar, as many can be found in diet sodas; or, might I say, €hidden€ behind the nutrition labels.
Head obesity researcher, Sharon Fowler, at UT Health Center at San Diego states that €artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite, but unlike regular sugars they don't deliver something that will squelch the appetite.€ The researcher has also commented that these sweeteners may block brain cells that signal the stomach for reaching the €full point€ in eating. Furthermore, Dr. David Katz, Yale University's Prevention Research Center's Director, agrees with this thought and states: "In my 20 years of clinical practice, patients who consume diet soda tend to have more of a sweet tooth; to get more sweet cravings; to eat more foods with added sugar; and to like and eat more processed food than patients who avoid both regular and diet soda."
To further illustrate, an experiment was performed on mice to simulate the effects of Aspartame (a popular artificial sweetener in diet soda). In this experiment, one group of mice was fed food mixed with Aspartame, and the control group chowed down on their normal food. After three months, the results were conclusive: the mice that were eating the Aspartame chow had higher blood sugar levels than the control group's mice did. After reviewing the researchers' reports of the experiment, it was revealed that the sweeteners could €contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans."
So whether it is studying blood sugars in mice, or waist lines of human subjects, it appears that diet soda can in fact be linked to weight gain.
