I drink two Diet Cokes with my coffee in the morning. It got me thinking does that matter? The Sweetner? Something we need to research and it is interesting what I have found on this issue...
The science is not decisive. The studies suggesting diet sodas, or anything containing sugar substitutes, can contribute to weight gain are based almost entirely on animal research. What scientists have found is that a rodent's brain relies on the link between taste and calories to keep track of just how much eating has occurred. Sugar substitutes—saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, neotame, and acesulfame-K—unbundle the taste of sweetness from calories: The taste buds tell the brain that food is coming in, but the body doesn't get the energy it's expecting. This, apparently, undermines the ability of rats to judge how much they've consumed, and, over time, they begin to overeat and gain weight.
Okay we are not rats, so this didn't answer my question within reason. So I had to research the matter further...
You know I also quote facts from studies but they are all over the board on the subject. Study subjects who drank two or more diet sodas a day had waist size increases that were six times greater than those of people who didn’t drink diet soda, said researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. This study was the only one who reported waist sizes. I am not buying this one, so lets look further.
Richard Mattes, a nutrition scientist at Purdue University, points out: Heavy people simply might choose to consume diet drinks more.
Mattes has studied how artificial sweeteners affect appetite and food intake. He believes that many studies reporting a link between diet soda and weight gain are actually hitting on a behavioral phenomenon—people think they can eat more calories because they’ve swapped their regular soda for a Coke Zero.
“That’s not a fault of the product itself, but it’s how people chose to use it,” he says. “Simply adding them to the diet does not promote weight gain or weight loss.”
The recent study didn’t track how many calories people consumed, though it did consider age, sex, education, neighborhood, diabetes status, leisure activity level and smoking status.
Study co-author Sharon Fowler, an epidemiologist, agrees – to a point. Yes, the diet drink association is partly psychological, she says, but she also believes there could be physiological explanations for why chemicals in diet sodas could lead to weight gain.
I believe after all my research on the topic, it still comes down to calories (or points) Isn't two diet sodas better than sugar juices or drinks?
They can be a great substitute for people who drink a lot of regular soda and are trying to cut down. Just be sure to take the next step—toward the water cooler.
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