Your diet soda may actually be making you fat! According to a recent study, people who drink one diet soda a day experience a nearly 70% increase in body fat over a 10-year period, and people who drank two or more diet sodas a day saw on average a 500% increase in their belt size when compared to people who drank water in place of diet soda.
Diet sodas contain fake sugars - Splenda, Sweet'N Low, or Equal. Aspartame, the chemical name for Equal which is found in the majority of diet soft drinks, forms chemicals in the liver which disrupt cell function and cause fat build-up. Evidence also suggests that aspartame kills or at least inhibits brain cells that signal a person to feel full, possibly leading diet-drinkers to over eat.
People frequently switch from regular to diet soft drinks in an attempt to reduce their daily caloric intake in hopes of losing weight or avoiding serious medical conditions like diabetes and heart disease. A study released earlier this year, however, showed people who drink one or more diet sodas daily actually increased their risks of strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots by a shocking 60%. The risk for diabetes was increased by nearly 40%, which is undoubtedly disappointing to patients hoping to better control diabetes by switching to zero calorie diet sodas. Drinking three or more diet sodas was shown in the same study to cause osteoporosis, the medical term for severe bone thinning.
The reasons for the apparent negative side effects of the artificial sweeteners found in all diet soft drinks are not completely understood, but more and more research suggests that drinking plain water is far safer for people wanting to cut calories, lose weight, and have a healthier lifestyle. Colonial Family Practice offers several options for healthy, physician-supervised weight loss. Call today for an appointment with one of our dietary counselors.
