Diet Soda and Weight Loss
Replies
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There is no evidence that artificial sweeteners cause insulin spikes. There is some evidence to the benefits of long-term use, however. More research is still being done, but general consensus is that when the body thinks it getting calories, but doesn't, it messes with sated/not sated triggers and your body doesn't always recognizing when enough calories have been consumed. This can lead to overeating because you still feel hungry, which leads to weight gain. I personally don't do artificial sweeteners because they are chemicals - it has nothing to do with my insulin resistance.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/artificial-sweeteners/
You do realize that everything you eat and drink is made of chemicals, right? Water is Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O). Proteins are long chains of Hydrogen (H), Nitrogen (N), Carbon (C) and Oxygen (O). Carbohydrates are chains of Hydrogen (H), Carbon (C) and Oxygen (O). Fats are composed of Hydrogen (H), Carbon (C) and oxygen (O).
Aspartame is composed of Aspartic Acid and Phenylalanine, which are two commonly occurring amino acids (proteins). The molecular formula is C14H18N2O5 (notice all the Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Oxygen in there? That's the exact same things that carbohydrates, proteins and fats (all the things in the foods you eat every day) are made of.
The scare of "OMGZZZ, teh chemikillzzzz!" has been thrown around in dieting myths for a long time, as if chemicals are somehow bad - when the truth is that "chemicals" make up everything we eat and drink. In fact, every part of our body is made of those same chemicals. So it's pretty hard to say they're dangerous.
To the OP - read the links that stevencloser and queenliz99 provided for the actual science without the scaremongering and unscientific hype.
As a personal anecdote, I've drank at least one diet soda almost every day for decades and it hasn't impeded my weight loss one bit, nor has it triggered cravings or had any adverse effect upon my health.9 -
Cheetos are my favorite4
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Or.... you could stop putting anything but WATER into your body. You only get one body right? There are things like aspartame in diet soda. What's that do? It is about 200 times sweeter than sugar, so much less of it can be used to give the same level of sweetness. This, in turn, lowers the calories in the food or beverage.
Think about what aspartame can do... Emotional Disorders... Cancer in the brain... Diabetes.... Epilepsy/Seizures.
Think about what water can do..... make you pee.... a lot....
No, no, and no. It's your choice on drinking it or not, but please don't spread misinformation and fear.There is no evidence that artificial sweeteners cause insulin spikes. There is some evidence to the benefits of long-term use, however. More research is still being done, but general consensus is that when the body thinks it getting calories, but doesn't, it messes with sated/not sated triggers and your body doesn't always recognizing when enough calories have been consumed. This can lead to overeating because you still feel hungry, which leads to weight gain. I personally don't do artificial sweeteners because they are chemicals - it has nothing to do with my insulin resistance.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/artificial-sweeteners/
Everything you drink is made of chemicals, even water. Chemicals are not scary. Your body is full of them.1 -
Yes, everyone, I am aware that EVERYTHING is made of chemicals - my apologies for using the word in more colloquial way. Let me clarify - my personal preference is to eat and drink things that occur in nature, not developed in a lab. I gave up artificial sweeteners years ago and I don't miss them. Do your research, mind your sources, and make whatever informed decision you feel is best.
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Or.... you could stop putting anything but WATER into your body. You only get one body right? There are things like aspartame in diet soda. What's that do? It is about 200 times sweeter than sugar, so much less of it can be used to give the same level of sweetness. This, in turn, lowers the calories in the food or beverage.
Think about what aspartame can do... Emotional Disorders... Cancer in the brain... Diabetes.... Epilepsy/Seizures.
Think about what water can do..... make you pee.... a lot....
The diet world is full of misinformation and rumor spread equally by unknowing dieters and corporations out to make a buck off us. There is so much of it out there that even seasoned health buffs have a hard time separating fact from fiction at times. The side effects of aspartame include migraines and possibly bloating in a small number of people. Those people should probably avoid it. But for the rest of us, epilepsy, brain cancer, these things have not been shown to be caused by aspartame. It would be great if you could take a look at some of the resources put forward so that we can stop spreading any more misinformation here.5 -
Yes, everyone, I am aware that EVERYTHING is made of chemicals - my apologies for using the word in more colloquial way. Let me clarify - my personal preference is to eat and drink things that occur in nature, not developed in a lab. I gave up artificial sweeteners years ago and I don't miss them. Do your research, mind your sources, and make whatever informed decision you feel is best.
Do your research? Yes please, explain to me how I should do my research because I don't agree with you that aspartame is dangerous.
By the way aspartame is just a dipeptide of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartate, with the phenylalanines carboxy terminus methylated. What was that about nature again?
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OP as far as your comment goes, injesting pretty much anything including water can stimulate insulin. The very act of consuming stimulates insulin.
Second, stimulating insulin to put you in "fat storage mode" (whatever that is) does not somehow create energy and mass out of nothing. You cannot just gain weight at of thin air or make something that has 3500 calories (a pound of fat) out of something that has none or very little.
Lets say drinking diet coke "stimulated" insulin more than anything else. That still wouldn't make you fat unless you were overconsuming food anyways.
Lets put it this way. If drinking diet coke (zero calories, no energy content) would allow your body to then put on fat (fat contains energy) in a way that it would not have already done from consuming the no energy drink then we have a way of producing free energy.
Get people to drink diet coke, liposuction the fat and you will literally create energy from nothing. Energy crisis solved.
Its B.S. and if you think about it critically its clearly B.S.
And yes, I understand that the claim being made is that somehow...like magic...diet coke makes your body require less energy and since your body now requires less energy you can eat the same amount of food but you have reduced your caloric need so you store the now excess as fat. But that has the exact same problem. If you can create energy from something that has no energy you have broken reality. Your body's BMR is mainly to just maintain your body temperature and your heartbeat...that isn't something that just goes away because you imbibed X or Y.7 -
alexreyn13 wrote: »"Artificial sweeteners trigger insulin, which sends your body into fat storage mode and leads to weight gain."
I've seen this phrase a few times in articles that discuss the effects of diet soda and weight loss. Is there actually any evidence or real science behind this statement?
aspartame doesn't trigger an insulin response...but it's irrelevant anyway...people need to do some research on insulin...everything you eat triggers an insulin response...if it doesn't then that's the problem. People are generally pretty ignorant about insulin for some reason and act as if an insulin response is a bad thing...it's your body doing what your body is supposed to do.3 -
I always liked the joke .. Have you ever seen a skinny person drinking a diet coke lol.
I drink regular when I do have them
Good luck2 -
Think about what aspartame can do... Emotional Disorders... Cancer in the brain... Diabetes.... Epilepsy/Seizures.
Said "CAN" not "WILL" and I apologize to anyone who felt the need to attack me or my opinion. It sounds like you are all experts and I'm an idiot, don't worry, I won't ever post here again.
Its just inappropriate to spread misinformation. Aspartame cannot cause the things you just listed. Pointing out that you are factually incorrect is not an attack on you personally nor is it calling you an idiot. People can be wrong without being idiots. On this, you are wrong...thats okay. I can only speak for myself but for me at least I don't feel like you are an idiot.
Critisism of ones ideas is not akin to personal abuse and I certainly do not want to live in a world where it is somehow socially inappropriate to critisize ideas. I'm sorry but the idea that aspartame in some way causes brian cancer or the implication that it "may" cause brain cancer in a post of someone concerned about it is an idea worthy of critcism.
If you can't handle people questioning the ideas you put forth into a public space then perhaps you are correct that you shouldn't post in public at least until you get you build up that self-esteem. For what its worth I am sorry you felt attacked.20 -
I personally think it might vary from person to person. For me, drinking artificial sweeteners like those do spike my blood sugar levels. Not insane numbers but the spike is there.
A couple years back my BFF who is Type I diabetic tried to convince me to drop splenda, aspartame and stevia in favor of xylitol or erythritol insisting that splenda, aspartame and stevia all cause a higher jump in sugar levels. I thought he was full of it but we were both doing a Vega shake fast so I agreed to test it out while I was staying with him that week. Every morning when I woke up I took my waking blood sugar. I then drank 1 8 oz glass of homemade lemonade from the same batch made on day 1. Every day I used a different sweetener in it. I then logged my blood sugar levels 20 minutes after drinking it and again 2 hours after drinking it before I had my first shake. It's been a few years now so I don't remember the actual readings but he was right. Splenda, aspartame, stevia and even erythritol all caused an increase in my blood sugar levels. Splenda and aspartame gave me the largest spikes. I do recall that. What shocked me the most was my blood sugars dropped after drinking the lemonade with xylitol.
Of course this wasn't done by a lab but my diet was very steady and I'm confident that the sweeteners played the largest role in the blood sugar spikes I got. A few months later I tried to get my BF off the soda and did the same experiment with him, similar results but he didnt care lol. It was eye opening for me and it made sense since I already knew on days I drank diet soda I tended to have a larger appetite and eat more food. For that reason I generally avoid the diet sweeteners completely now. I treat them as a treat. Not something I have every day. I think it helps me keep cravings and appetite under control.1 -
Think about what aspartame can do... Emotional Disorders... Cancer in the brain... Diabetes.... Epilepsy/Seizures.
Said "CAN" not "WILL" and I apologize to anyone who felt the need to attack me or my opinion. It sounds like you are all experts and I'm an idiot, don't worry, I won't ever post here again.
Actually, at least one poster here is an expert on it.
And, since you said to think about what water can do? It can kill you. It's more likely to kill you than aspartame is to cause any of what you think it can.3 -
That was a quick flounce.3
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youtube crap
And now an example of an ACTUAL source:
http://seriecientifica.org/sites/default/files/scl_enc_butchko.pdf1 -
I personally think it might vary from person to person. For me, drinking artificial sweeteners like those do spike my blood sugar levels. Not insane numbers but the spike is there.
A couple years back my BFF who is Type I diabetic tried to convince me to drop splenda, aspartame and stevia in favor of xylitol or erythritol insisting that splenda, aspartame and stevia all cause a higher jump in sugar levels. I thought he was full of it but we were both doing a Vega shake fast so I agreed to test it out while I was staying with him that week. Every morning when I woke up I took my waking blood sugar. I then drank 1 8 oz glass of homemade lemonade from the same batch made on day 1. Every day I used a different sweetener in it. I then logged my blood sugar levels 20 minutes after drinking it and again 2 hours after drinking it before I had my first shake. It's been a few years now so I don't remember the actual readings but he was right. Splenda, aspartame, stevia and even erythritol all caused an increase in my blood sugar levels. Splenda and aspartame gave me the largest spikes. I do recall that. What shocked me the most was my blood sugars dropped after drinking the lemonade with xylitol.
Of course this wasn't done by a lab but my diet was very steady and I'm confident that the sweeteners played the largest role in the blood sugar spikes I got. A few months later I tried to get my BF off the soda and did the same experiment with him, similar results but he didnt care lol. It was eye opening for me and it made sense since I already knew on days I drank diet soda I tended to have a larger appetite and eat more food. For that reason I generally avoid the diet sweeteners completely now. I treat them as a treat. Not something I have every day. I think it helps me keep cravings and appetite under control.
Did you do the necessary control of drinking the lemonade without any sweetener? Because I'm pretty sure injesting anything will spike your blood sugar momentarily, whether it is sweet or not.4 -
There was actually quite an interesting programme on the BBC here where they conducted an experiment, with admittedly small numbers but did point to saccharin causing increased blood glucose compared to stevia. There was also the suggestion that artificial sweeteners mess up gut flora. And there's been a massive interest recently in how our gut microbiome contributes to health and how it can be modulated by things like breastfeeding and diet. The field is somewhat in its infancy but interesting nonetheless.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/51yxBQyvqpNYPT3PF0LGL3G/are-artificial-sweeteners-bad-for-me0 -
So your evidence is a youtube video?
Can you explain how a methylated dipeptide causes that because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
In the meantime here is a metanalysis of aspartame from Critical Reviews of Toxicology:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/104084407015161841 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Think about what aspartame can do... Emotional Disorders... Cancer in the brain... Diabetes.... Epilepsy/Seizures.
Said "CAN" not "WILL" and I apologize to anyone who felt the need to attack me or my opinion. It sounds like you are all experts and I'm an idiot, don't worry, I won't ever post here again.
Its just inappropriate to spread misinformation. Aspartame cannot cause the things you just listed. Pointing out that you are factually incorrect is not an attack on you personally nor is it calling you an idiot. People can be wrong without being idiots. On this, you are wrong...thats okay. I can only speak for myself but for me at least I don't feel like you are an idiot.
Critisism of ones ideas is not akin to personal abuse and I certainly do not want to live in a world where it is somehow socially inappropriate to critisize ideas. I'm sorry but the idea that aspartame in some way causes brian cancer or the implication that it "may" cause brain cancer in a post of someone concerned about it is an idea worthy of critcism.
If you can't handle people questioning the ideas you put forth into a public space then perhaps you are correct that you shouldn't post in public at least until you get you build up that self-esteem.
Sounds like you know me so well. I'm sorry, I had no idea you knew everything about me and myself. I will work on my self-esteem and I'll take all your advice. You sound like the perfect person to listen to. How dare I think anything other than your opinion. I'll also ignore the 900 case studies that made the suggestions I posted. Good luck with your life.
Actually, you got one thing right. With regards to aspartame and its effects, Aaron is the perfect person (or close to it) to listen to.5 -
So your evidence is a 7 minute youtube video then.
So the metaanalysis from Critical Reviews of Toxicology...that is just shills working for the man I assume:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17828671
Also perhaps explain to me how a methylated dipeptide that is metabolically broken down into common amino acids and methanol causes these problems that this video claims.
I also love the dangers of methanol listed. Yes, methanol is dangerous...but you get a lot more methanol from fruit juices than you do from the amount of aspartame in a 1 liter of diet coke. Methanol is found in any fermentable product (like fruits) in addition to anything that contains a methylester which will be metabolized into methanol (most things).
You get phenylalanine and aspartate "Excessively" from aspartame? What the heck? there are literally grams of phenylalanine and aspartate in chicken breasts or ANY protein, in comparison the the amount contained in a diet coke is hundreds of times lower in the range of miligrams.
Here, look, I've already done the math and broken it all down before. Don't feel like repeating myself so there is a link.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary/p1
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »I personally think it might vary from person to person. For me, drinking artificial sweeteners like those do spike my blood sugar levels. Not insane numbers but the spike is there.
A couple years back my BFF who is Type I diabetic tried to convince me to drop splenda, aspartame and stevia in favor of xylitol or erythritol insisting that splenda, aspartame and stevia all cause a higher jump in sugar levels. I thought he was full of it but we were both doing a Vega shake fast so I agreed to test it out while I was staying with him that week. Every morning when I woke up I took my waking blood sugar. I then drank 1 8 oz glass of homemade lemonade from the same batch made on day 1. Every day I used a different sweetener in it. I then logged my blood sugar levels 20 minutes after drinking it and again 2 hours after drinking it before I had my first shake. It's been a few years now so I don't remember the actual readings but he was right. Splenda, aspartame, stevia and even erythritol all caused an increase in my blood sugar levels. Splenda and aspartame gave me the largest spikes. I do recall that. What shocked me the most was my blood sugars dropped after drinking the lemonade with xylitol.
Of course this wasn't done by a lab but my diet was very steady and I'm confident that the sweeteners played the largest role in the blood sugar spikes I got. A few months later I tried to get my BF off the soda and did the same experiment with him, similar results but he didnt care lol. It was eye opening for me and it made sense since I already knew on days I drank diet soda I tended to have a larger appetite and eat more food. For that reason I generally avoid the diet sweeteners completely now. I treat them as a treat. Not something I have every day. I think it helps me keep cravings and appetite under control.
Did you do the necessary control of drinking the lemonade without any sweetener? Because I'm pretty sure injesting anything will spike your blood sugar momentarily, whether it is sweet or not.
Yes. The batch of lemonade I made for the "experiment" on day 1 (that I used for the remainder of the days) I drank with no sweetener. The unsweetened lemon water had very little effect on my blood sugar level. I noticed a very minor spike at 20 mine out and by 2 hours out I was back to my waking blood sugar. With all the sweeteners except xylitol I still had higher blood sugar levels 2 hours out. Granted they were nothing compared to what sugar sweetened lemonade caused (I didn't try sugar the first time but did when I did the second experiment with my bf cause he drinks a ton of sugar and I wanted him to see the difference) but the elevated levels were still evident. For the record I am pre-diabetic so that may have played a large role in my results.0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I personally think it might vary from person to person. For me, drinking artificial sweeteners like those do spike my blood sugar levels. Not insane numbers but the spike is there.
A couple years back my BFF who is Type I diabetic tried to convince me to drop splenda, aspartame and stevia in favor of xylitol or erythritol insisting that splenda, aspartame and stevia all cause a higher jump in sugar levels. I thought he was full of it but we were both doing a Vega shake fast so I agreed to test it out while I was staying with him that week. Every morning when I woke up I took my waking blood sugar. I then drank 1 8 oz glass of homemade lemonade from the same batch made on day 1. Every day I used a different sweetener in it. I then logged my blood sugar levels 20 minutes after drinking it and again 2 hours after drinking it before I had my first shake. It's been a few years now so I don't remember the actual readings but he was right. Splenda, aspartame, stevia and even erythritol all caused an increase in my blood sugar levels. Splenda and aspartame gave me the largest spikes. I do recall that. What shocked me the most was my blood sugars dropped after drinking the lemonade with xylitol.
Of course this wasn't done by a lab but my diet was very steady and I'm confident that the sweeteners played the largest role in the blood sugar spikes I got. A few months later I tried to get my BF off the soda and did the same experiment with him, similar results but he didnt care lol. It was eye opening for me and it made sense since I already knew on days I drank diet soda I tended to have a larger appetite and eat more food. For that reason I generally avoid the diet sweeteners completely now. I treat them as a treat. Not something I have every day. I think it helps me keep cravings and appetite under control.
Did you do the necessary control of drinking the lemonade without any sweetener? Because I'm pretty sure injesting anything will spike your blood sugar momentarily, whether it is sweet or not.
Yes. The batch of lemonade I made for the "experiment" on day 1 (that I used for the remainder of the days) I drank with no sweetener. The unsweetened lemon water had very little effect on my blood sugar level. I noticed a very minor spike at 20 mine out and by 2 hours out I was back to my waking blood sugar. With all the sweeteners except xylitol I still had higher blood sugar levels 2 hours out. Granted they were nothing compared to what sugar sweetened lemonade caused (I didn't try sugar the first time but did when I did the second experiment with my bf cause he drinks a ton of sugar and I wanted him to see the difference) but the elevated levels were still evident. For the record I am pre-diabetic so that may have played a large role in my results.
Well aspartame is a digestable dipeptide with some caloric value (like 3 or 4 calories worth in a diet coke) so I suppose its possible that you'd get something out of it, but I'm not sure where the sugar in the spike in blood sugar comes from other than an insulin release related to consumption. If you drink or eat anything your body is going to respond to it.
But none of that matters really, if you personally find that avoiding diet soda helps you personally manage your weight then by all means you should avoid diet soda. Doesn't matter why really
The problems I have with people on this topic aren't ones you are exhibiting. You are not taking this to the point of saying "therefore its bad and everyone should avoid it". Personal experience IS useful, to the person experiencing it and that is the way you applied it. Cool.
If people want to avoid beverage Y or food X as an experiment to see if they feel better and having done so and they end up feeling better it would be silly to try to argue them out of it in my opinion.
Big leap between "I feel better personally if I avoid X" and "X will make you fat and give you cancer so I'm going to tell everyone to avoid X because its dangerous"5 -
There was actually quite an interesting programme on the BBC here where they conducted an experiment, with admittedly small numbers but did point to saccharin causing increased blood glucose compared to stevia. There was also the suggestion that artificial sweeteners mess up gut flora. And there's been a massive interest recently in how our gut microbiome contributes to health and how it can be modulated by things like breastfeeding and diet. The field is somewhat in its infancy but interesting nonetheless.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/51yxBQyvqpNYPT3PF0LGL3G/are-artificial-sweeteners-bad-for-me
To be honest microbiomes have been picked up by the public kind of like quantum physics was about 15 years ago. Public hears of a concept that has actually been around for 50 years. Public runs with it as possible explanations for X,Y,Z because "we don't know enough therefore this might be an explanation". News agencies pick up on that public interest and run stories that are entirely speculative saying "might be so" basically and get readership.
Not knowing something about X is not a reason to apply it as an explanation for Y and that is what is going on here. We don't know enough about microbiomes therefore this thing I think causes this other thing might cause it by affecting the microbiome.
Crystal power and other woo flocked to quantum physics in much the same way. It was wierd and hard to understand and therefore became the place to put their ideas that science had thusfar not validated. Now, with biology, suddenly a lot of these claims of toxins and dangers associated with GMOs and Aspartame and Vaccines are hung on the microbiome in much the same way. So far no study conducted for toxicology has actually validated our claims but we don't know enough about the microbiome so I bet that is the cause. They want X to be the cause of Y and are actively looking for places where that causal link might be hiding. Its the opposite of what good scientific approach is and is pure bias.
Not saying articles like the one you posted aren't necessarily a good read, but these days when I see "microbiome" in the public sphere it just seems like hand-waving to try to put something science-sounding in place of saying "we don't know"3 -
I just worry about overall kidney health. I'm a person with one kidney and I remember my doctor telling me if I were to drink a soda make it a real one. Seriously if you are working so hard to look good on the outside..... learn what can damage your insides. Diet soda is not good for you one bit. Yeah it has no calories, however, do you find that weird at all based on the colour and taste of your drink? Chemicals are rank......1
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I just worry about overall kidney health. I'm a person with one kidney and I remember my doctor telling me if I were to drink a soda make it a real one. Seriously if you are working so hard to look good on the outside..... learn what can damage your insides. Diet soda is not good for you one bit. Yeah it has no calories, however, do you find that weird at all based on the colour and taste of your drink? Chemicals are rank......
Aspartame does not cause kidney damage, at least not anymore than chickenbreasts and orange juice does.6 -
Aspartame causes me to have headaches & it increases my appetite.0
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I just worry about overall kidney health. I'm a person with one kidney and I remember my doctor telling me if I were to drink a soda make it a real one. Seriously if you are working so hard to look good on the outside..... learn what can damage your insides. Diet soda is not good for you one bit. Yeah it has no calories, however, do you find that weird at all based on the colour and taste of your drink? Chemicals are rank......
Why would the color and taste make it weird?0 -
Aaron _k123
Thank you for your opinion but are you a doctor? Um, no is my guess. Or do you specialize in kidney health? Um no is my guess. Or do you read stuff on the Web and take it as gospel? Yes, would be my guess.
My kidney health is fantastic. Just sayin...maybe cause I drink water... lol.... I don't know...
Have you tested your kidneys? Probably not...
What I wrote was for people to read and think about. But thank you for your response.1 -
Aaron _k123
Thank you for your opinion but are you a doctor? Um, no is my guess. Or do you specialize in kidney health? Um no is my guess. Or do you read stuff on the Web and take it as gospel? Yes, would be my guess.
My kidney health is fantastic. Just sayin...maybe cause I drink water... lol.... I don't know...
Have you tested your kidneys? Probably not...
What I wrote was for people to read and think about. But thank you for your response.
Well, he's not an md but he has a pH.d5 -
DeficitDuchess wrote: »Aspartame causes me to have headaches & it increases my appetite.
Okay. Well avoid it then. Are you advising the OP they should also avoid it because it causes you headaches and increases your appetite?1
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