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Diet sodas may be calorie-free, but they could be worse for your health and your waistline than ones with sugar, a new report suggests.
Over the long term, fake sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, and saccharine might mess with our bodies' abilities to process the calories from sweet things, making it harder for us to metabolize the sugars we get from other sources like candy, cookies, or even fruit.
Purdue University scientist Susan Swithers found in a meta-analysis of 26 health and diet studies that artificially-sweetened sodas — unlike water — were often still associated with many of the same ailments common in people who drink sugary sodas, and may actually increase the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes.
We first heard about Swithers' analysis via NPR. She discussed the results in an an opinion piece published in the July 10 issue of the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.
According to Swithers, the trouble with artificial sweeteners is the same thing that makes them so popular — they taste a lot like sugar and have few or zero calories. For example, the molecule for sucralose (found in products like Splenda), is extremely similar to the molecule for sugar. That is why it tastes eerily similar — it is tricking our bodies into thinking we are eating something sugary.
But our bodies cannot metabolize sucralose. It just passes through us. This is its charm— and its potential danger. Normally, when our body detects that we have eaten something sweet, it anticipates the arrival of much needed energy and activates mechanisms to capture it. If we continuously fool the body with sweet tastes that do not bring any energy or nutrients, we risk teaching our own metabolisms to stop responding to sweet tastes entirely. We are essentially "crying wolf," and when we finally do eat something with sugar, the body ignores the signal and fails to process it properly.
Over time, whatever calories people think they are cutting with artificial sweeteners might just be returning to them in the form of poorly metabolized sugars from other foods.
The data Swithers examines does not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between sweeteners and obesity, it simply sees a strong correlation — just as strong as we see with regular soda. There could be other explanations.
For example, it may be that using artificial sweeteners changes people's behavior in other ways — some might think because they are drinking a "diet" soda, they can afford to eat an extra helping of French fries.
In any event, the data does indicates that fake sweeteners are not helping people lose weight, and should not be treated as a totally safe and neutral alternative to sugary drinks.
"Findings from a variety of studies show that routine consumption of diet sodas, even one per day, can be connected to higher likelihood of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and high blood pressure, in addition to contributing to weight gain," Swithers said in a press release.
The trend was consistent in virtually every study Swithers examined, even though each used different research methods, examined different populations of people, and had different ways of accounting for factors like ethnicity, education level and other dietary habits.
Of course, the American Beverage Association has already offered rebuttals to news outlets NPR and USA Today, which includes the statement,
"Low-calorie sweeteners are some of the most studied and reviewed ingredients in the food supply today. They are safe and an effective tool in weight loss and weight management, according to decades of scientific research and regulatory agencies around the globe."
Last updated on June 26th, 2022
In the world of soft drinks, people often choose diet soda and diet drinks over regular soda because they think that the reduced calorie load is better for them.
After all, not ingesting so much sugar has to be a smart option when you compare regular soda or sparkling water with diet soda.
Due to the absence of a real sugar diet, soda drinkers prefer diet soft drinks like diet coke.
They think that it will not harm them during their weight loss journey.
However, recent studies have challenged people thinking in this regard and led them to wonder if diet soda really is better for you than regular sugary soda.
So here’s the question that we are faced with today.
Is Diet Coke worse than regular Coke? And if so, why?
The short answer is that Diet Coke is actually worse for you in certain ways than regular Coke in sugary beverages.
That is because the use of artificial sweeteners in diet coke instead of regular sugar leads to crossed wires in your metabolic pathways.
Additionally, Diet Coke uses potassium benzoate as a preservative and this compound has been linked to several troubling studies.
However, Diet Coke does save you a lot of calories when it comes to regular Coke.
So let’s get down to it and work on the comparison.
- Diet Coke Sweeteners Vs Sugar in Regular Coke
- Aspartame Metabolism
- Potassium Benzoate
- So how is regular Coke better for you than Diet Coke?
- Wrapping it all up – Diet Vs Regular Coca Cola’s
Diet Coke Sweeteners Vs Sugar in Regular Coke
So we’ve already told you that using artificial sweeteners instead of regular sugar causes add crossing of the wires in your metabolic pathways.
This is the reason why.
When you eat something sweet, your body receives the signals that there is going to be sugar entering your system.
Therefore, the brain signals your endocrine system to produce insulin.
Your pancreas then starts pumping out insulin so that it can store the incoming sugar for energy to be used later.
Mostly, high sugar storage lead to weight gain.
However, when you drink a Diet Coke, the aspartame and acesulfame potassium still send the sweet signal to your brain to ramp up insulin production.
However, there is no sugar for the insulin to bind with to store it away. And too much insulin is a bad thing.
When you have too much insulin in your bloodstream, the cells in your body can’t absorb more sugar from your blood.This also causes your liver to release less sugar into your blood.
And combined this can cause your glucose levels to plummet.
There is no doubt that Acesulfame Potassium is beneficial to balance sugar level in your diet.
However, Acesulfame Potassium as a sweetener can harm your body in a variety of ways.
This condition is called hypoglycemia and can lead you to craving real sugars.
When you crave real sugar, then you start to binge eat and eat a lot of sweet things in an effort to restore your blood sugar levels back to a normal level.
Aspartame Metabolism
Another reason that Aspartame is bad for you is because of how it is broken down.
When Aspartame is metabolized, it breaks down into phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol.
A small percentage of the population is extremely sensitive to phenylalanine and reacts badly to it.
These people suffer from phenylketonuria and this affects approximately one in 10,000 people.
These sufferers lack the metabolic Pathway to break down phenylalanine.
This can lead to intellectual disability, metabolic syndrome, seizures, and mental and behavioral problems.
This condition is incurable, but it can be treated as long as the sufferer follows a strict diet with limited protein intake.
Normally phenylalanine enters the brain and is used as a building block for a dopamine or noradrenaline.
Aspartic acid is an excitatory neurotransmitter that can lead you to be jittery.
About one of the worst offenders is methanol which metabolizes into formaldehyde or formate which can cause stress and tissue damage.
However, before you toss out your diet soda because of the methanol inversion, you should recognize this.
Only about 10% of the aspartame content in the soda is converted to methanol.
And when it comes to the methanol content, tomato juice averages three to four times the concentration that your diet coke apps.
And red wine, which everybody agrees is good for you can contain anywhere from two to five times the methanol concentrations.
And yes, it is possible to consume too much aspartame.
However, the FDA is acceptable daily intake for a person that weighs 75 Kg or 65 lb is 3750 ml mg.
Consider that a Diet Coke has 180 mg of aspartame, to reach that recommended acceptable daily intake, you need to drink 21 cans of Diet Coke in a day.
That roughly translates to 250 ounces of Diet Coke, or 15.625 pounds.
So the primary risk reason why Diet Coke is worse than regular Coke has primarily to do with the metabolic crossing of the wires that can lead to your body overproducing insulin.
When it comes to the aspartame content, unless you suffer from phenylketonuria, the small amount of aspartame in Diet Coke or diet beverages should not pose any significant health risks like risk of diabetes for you.
Potassium Benzoate
But what about potassium benzoate, the chemical that Diet Coke uses as a preservative?
How does that affect how good Diet Coke is compared to regular Coke.
After all, regular Coke does not have any preservatives.
Potassium benzoate is categorized by the Food and Drug Administration as generally recognized as safe.
A small amount inhibits the growth of mold and other bacteria.
However, when combined with ascorbic acid and sodium, potassium benzoate has the unfortunate tendency to form Benzene, which is a known carcinogen.
In 2007, a study was performed by the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, which found that there were some soft drinks that had a higher than the acceptable concentration of benzene in their drinks.
This led to an entirely new set of Standards being instated, and the products and questions being reviewed and revamp.
Additionally, you may be allergic to potassium benzoate and suffer an adverse reaction.
So and this case, if you have a food allergy, then Diet Coke will definitely be worse for you than classic Coca-Cola.
So how is regular Coke better for you than Diet Coke?
When it comes to drinking carbonated water or soda of any kind, whether diet or regular, you need to remember what the ancient Greek poet Hesiod said.
“Moderation is best in all things.” Consider that a can of regular Coca-Cola has around 10 teaspoons of sugar.
While this seems like a lot, you should also remember that other sugary drinks such as a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino can be two times sweeter than coke.
So, an occasional regular Coke isn’t going to be that bad for you in the long run.
However, as soon as you throw out the moderation, then you run into problems.
When you drink too much soda, and your diet is too high in refined sugar, you tend to reduce the chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
High sugar consumption can also increase the risk of diabetes.
This can affect how you learn and your memory formation.
Additionally, just one can of soda per day has been linked to a 20% increase in blood pressure, heart disease, and heart attack risk.
You can additionally be at high risk for developing asthma when drinking soda.
And the situation becomes worse the more soda you drink.
That is, the more Coca-Cola you drink, the higher the chance of running into a problem.
Wrapping it all up – Diet Vs Regular Coca Cola’s
So in the end, too much of anything is a Bad Thing whether it’s Diet Coke or regular Coke.
However, with the added risks that Diet Coke brings to the table with the addition of aspartame and preservatives.
Diet Coke definitely has a greater chance of being worse for you due to sugar substitutes than regular Coke.
However, we still recommend that you drink more water or even tea that contain natural flavors rather than a soft drink containing sugar and artificial sweeteners like Coca Cola or Diet Coke.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
I’m always happy to hear from my readers and more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
I’m the owner and blogger here at SodaPopCraft.Com. I’m a soft drinks enthusiast and I’m bringing you all I know and research from the world of Soda Pop & Kombucha soft drinks.
I hope it inspires you to make your own healthier fizzy drinks at home.
Read more About Me here