"Fake" sugar: Why is it not good for you?
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WinoGelato wrote: »I've heard people say things like this, and I really and truly don't understand that concept. I've been drinking Diet Coke for 20 or so years, not to mention artificial sweeteners in my coffee (although I don't anymore, not because they are bad, I just started using flavored creamers and don't miss the Splenda). I have never once accidentally eaten a Big Mac because my Diet Coke tricked me into thinking that I had to eat since I wasn't full enough. If I eat a Big Mac, it is because I am hungry, or because I just want it (which I don't even like Big Macs, it is just the example provided) not because I ate 2000 calories of other foods and because I drank Diet Coke, my body thought I needed MOAR food...
Heh, exactly. I have always preferred diet soda since I switched at age 16 or so, and I eat exactly the same as what I would otherwise eat, with no consideration for the calories in my drink. I just always figured, even when I wasn't really paying attention to what I ate, that there was no need to add in extra calories from drinks when the diet tasted better to me (once I was used to it).
This notion that someone thinks she isn't overeating if she has a diet soda with her whole pizza is silly.
I also never had my palate screwed up by drinking diet soda. In fact, I have always thought fruits and veggies tasted perfectly good and adequately sweet despite drinking diet soda and had a strong preference for drier wines vs. sweeter at the same time I was drinking diet coke quite regularly. I do accept that for some people it might have this effect, but clearly not for everyone.
(It also does not cause me to crave more food or sweet foods or carbs. If anything I can grab a soda as a replacement for a snack if I'm hungry in the afternoon--I think it's because of the caffeine.)
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MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?0 -
sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
No. The most toxic thing in my Diet Coke is the water.0 -
MamaBirdBoss wrote: »sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
No. The most toxic thing in my Diet Coke is the water.
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I tend to go with sweet n low or sugar free foods/drinks. That has helped me. I try to reduce the soda intake, but I have found the sugar substitute to work better for me. That has helped reduce my daily calorie intake.0
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sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
No.
I generally don't ever find fecal matter in my soft drinks. I always try to avoid ingesting fecal matter. This can be avoided by practicing the correct handwashing methods, keeping the bathroom clean, and by not drinking out of the toilet.0 -
sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
I don't think it's "crap." I think of it as pretty neutral. I wouldn't think it was great to drink enormous amounts regularly, but I think it's probably not great to drink as much coffee as I do (coffee is much more my weakness than soda), and yet the fact one can be immoderate with it doesn't make coffee "crap."
I think regular soda can also be okay if you count the calories and keep it to moderation, but one reason I'm pretty pro diet soda (which I think tastes better than regular) is that it's so easy to get tons of calories without thinking if you do regular and regular soda is actually one of the few individual foods where there is some evidence that consumption in amounts that at least a good many people routinely do over time seems to connect with increased risks for things like T2D. So switching to diet seems to me to be a good choice that could make cutting calories somewhat pretty easy if you are careful not to replace the calories. Obviously switching to unsweetened iced tea or water also would have similar effects.0 -
sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
What makes diet soda crap in your opinion?0 -
I've seen plenty of people claim they get headaches from artificial sugar. I don't know about other ones, but for aspartame, the preponderance of evidence is that it is a placebo effect. People don't seem to get headaches more often than a control group when ingesting aspartame without knowing if they are.
http://examine.com/faq/does-aspartame-cause-headaches0 -
read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.0 -
Asparatme does have a "hand" with 6 carbons on it though, so it may have killed Inigo Montoya's father.0
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read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.
But if you're monitoring your intake, and eat mindfully, then you can control this. I don't see how this would be an issue for someone who is logging their food or otherwise monitoring what they eat.0 -
Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.
But if you're monitoring your intake, and eat mindfully, then you can control this. I don't see how this would be an issue for someone who is logging their food or otherwise monitoring what they eat.
You are correct, and I agree with this.
But people don't track and log as the norm, right?
Plus if you are aware of the lack of triggers and responses due to drinking diet sodas, then you would get less people asking the whole "I just had xxxxx, but I am still hungry."
Or some such stuff......
So my response is just to OP's original question.0 -
read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.
You can stop wanting to eat something from drinking plain water so I'd say no that's not how it works.0 -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/
excerpt from the study....Increasing evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners do not activate the food reward pathways in the same fashion as natural sweeteners. Lack of caloric contribution generally eliminates the postingestive component. Functional magnetic imaging in normal weight men showed that glucose ingestion resulted in a prolonged signal depression in the hypothalamus. This response was not observed with sucralose ingestion [50]. Natural and artificial sweeteners also activate the gustatory branch differently. The sweet taste receptor, a heterodimer of two G protein coupled transmembrane receptors, contain several ligand-binding sites. For instance, aspartame and cyclamate, respectively, bind to each of the two monomers [52]. On the functional level, sucrose ingestion, compared to saccharin ingestion, was associated with greater activation of the higher gustatory areas such as the insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and amygdala [53].
These pilot investigations are consistent with a revised hypothesis: Sweetness decoupled from caloric content offers partial, but not complete, activation of the food reward pathways. Activation of the hedonic component may contribute to increased appetite. Animals seek food to satisfy the inherent craving for sweetness, even in the absence of energy need. Lack of complete satisfaction, likely because of the failure to activate the postingestive component, further fuels the food seeking behavior. Reduction in reward response may contribute to obesity. Impaired activation of the mesolimbic pathways following milkshake ingestion was observed in obese adolescent girls [45].
Lastly, artificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence. Repeated exposure trains flavor preference [54]. A strong correlation exists between a person’s customary intake of a flavor and his preferred intensity for that flavor. Systematic reduction of dietary salt [55] or fat [56] without any flavorful substitution over the course of several weeks led to a preference for lower levels of those nutrients in the research subjects. In light of these findings, a similar approach might be used to reduce sugar intake. Unsweetening the world’s diet [15] may be the key to reversing the obesity epidemic.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.
You can stop wanting to eat something from drinking plain water so I'd say no that's not how it works.
Water is different than diet soda.....
So not an apples to apples comparison.
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apparently diet drinks make you store fat, I used to use them to suppress my hunger but its not worth the risk of drinking them0
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sadiebrawl wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »I joined MFP at 147.2lbs on June 9.
Today, I weighed in at 137.6lbs.
I drink 6 or so Diet Cokes a day because I don't do tea in the summer.
So, I get that it aids in weight loss, rather than regular Cokes. You do have to admit both are crap though, no?
so I just drank crap for lunch????0 -
Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »read one article a while back about people who drink diet sodas, and still some how gain weight....
And one of the things they said, is that in and of itself, the diet coke would help a person lose weight (less calories).....but the artificial sweetner being used, did not trigger responses in the body and mind......
So if a person were drinking something with sugar, then the body would release hormones and respond accordingly "Hey, there is something in my stomach, I am good now."
But with diet soda, this does not happen....no signals are triggered, so the person still thinks the stomach is empty and needs food....thus they eat.
But if you're monitoring your intake, and eat mindfully, then you can control this. I don't see how this would be an issue for someone who is logging their food or otherwise monitoring what they eat.
You are correct, and I agree with this.
But people don't track and log as the norm, right?
Plus if you are aware of the lack of triggers and responses due to drinking diet sodas, then you would get less people asking the whole "I just had xxxxx, but I am still hungry."
Or some such stuff......
So my response is just to OP's original question.
Meh, I always assume that most of the people on these forums will be monitoring their intake. I'm just of the opinion that if someone is going to drink diet soda and think that it will allow them to eat whatever they want, or if they don't have enough sense to avoid something that makes them want to eat more, then that's totally on them. It's not the diet soda's fault. Some people may get hungrier after drinking diet soda, but I would simply tell them to avoid it if that is the case.0 -
KwonJiYong69 wrote: »apparently diet drinks make you store fat, I used to use them to suppress my hunger but its not worth the risk of drinking them
That is completely false.0
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