The Ugly Truth About Diet Soda

randyv99

By now you know that I like titling things in a way to draw people's attention, critiques, criticism and comments. I'm a glutton for a good debate. Anyhow, this is more of a personal observation. But as I've been seriously trying to respond to my body's needs rather than my wants these past three months, I have noticed something very peculiar: whenever I am drinking a diet soda, I have stronger urges for junk food (esp. sweets) than when I drink water. The same is not true of me drinking a non-diet drink. Now being a self-proclaimed scientist (and self-proclaimed pretty-much-everything-under-the-sun) I have read quite a few studies in the past linking diet drinks to poor food choices, over-eating and poor portion control but I never really noticed it in myself until today. In fact, I had not been craving anything at all until I started washing down my ridiculously unhealthy diet with diet soda today.

Has anyone noticed anything like this at all? Something you eat, drink or do that triggers your desire for something you'd rather not eat, drink or do and weren't even thinking about before you ate, drank or did that thing? <--Could this poorly stated statement masquerading as a question be any more convoluted?

Happy Sunday everyone.

FrenchMob

I believe the diet soda is getting the bad rap in this case. What is more likely happening is diet soda, for you, is a trigger of past bad eating behavior. Your brain associates diet soda with junk food you use to eat when you drank diet soda.

For me it's sitting in front of the TV. Not even 15 mins after sitting in front of the tube, I get urges to eat...chips, pizza, etc because that's all I use to do in the past when I sat in front of the tube for 4-5 hrs a night.

That's why it's called a BAD HABIT.:ohwell:

JaydeSkye

Well, I apologize for stating the obvious Mr. Scientist, but diet soda is CRAP that your body does not need and has zero nutritional benefit for your body, period. Sure you feel good about cutting calories and sugar by switching to diet brands, but um... HELLO you're drinking CARBONATED CHEMICALS! I never understand why people who put in so much effort to live a 'healthy' lifestyle and change their eatting habits, etc. will continue to drink soda, diet or not. It makes me feel sick thinking about it. I picture someone taking their glass of water and adding an entire container of thick maple syrup then a bunch of gas. Pretty much the equivilent.

To answer your question: yes, if I eat chocolate I want more. The science behind that craving is the endorphins released in the brain and the spike in the blood sugar - but I'm sure you know that already. So, I just avoid chocolate all together. Not saying I will NEVER eat it again, but just not in the near future.

modernfemme

Well, I apologize for stating the obvious Mr. Scientist, but diet soda is CRAP that your body does not need and has zero nutritional benefit for your body, period. Sure you feel good about cutting calories and sugar by switching to diet brands, but um... HELLO you're drinking CARBONATED CHEMICALS! I never understand why people who put in so much effort to live a 'healthy' lifestyle and change their eatting habits, etc. will continue to drink soda, diet or not. It makes me feel sick thinking about it. I picture someone taking their glass of water and adding an entire container of thick maple syrup then a bunch of gas. Pretty much the equivilent.

Yikes. There isn't anything wrong with drinking a soda every now and then, the same reason you can have a cup cake every now and then. Do you eat french fries? Sometimes restaurants don't change their oil for months and you are putting that poison into your body. We can sit here all day long and say don't eat this, don't eat that, but if people are realistically going to lose weight, they still have to be able to enjoy the foods they love. Diet soda really isn't the biggest evil.

Yasmine91

I'm glad diet drinks don't make me get the same reaction you do :P

I drink diet pepsi all the time, more than I do water, yes that's bad but it helps me keep my fluids up in anpther way :P

I have really got to start drinking more water though LOL

SandraMay1982

I actually did the HORRIBLE thing today. I had KFC. instead of getting the normal pepsi. I got the max. I never drink the ****. I read the can and really. I drank it. But. I don't think I ever will again. I logged it here. and you know what it gave me? Sodium. That's it. Nothing else. I wonder how they give it taste, does it have acetone or something in it? *L*

There's a reason I always called fizzy drinks gut rot. ha. Because really. That's all you're doing.
I am glad I have never been big on it. I haven't missed it. I'm more or a carb addict.

But. I have noticed that being a WoW (World of Warcraft) addict, with the new expansion coming out. I have haven't reverted to the "bad habit" I have when sitting here. I haven't been putting my hand to my mouth with food all week while gaming. Which. I think is an awesome habit to break.

So. It's probably all just the power of association. As said above. I associate gaming with food to mouth. Mindless eating of chips and chocolate.

modernfemme

But. I have noticed that being a WoW (World of Warcraft) addict, with the new expansion coming out. I have haven't reverted to the "bad habit" I have when sitting here. I haven't been putting my hand to my mouth with food all week while gaming. Which. I think is an awesome habit to break.

So. It's probably all just the power of association. As said above. I associate gaming with food to mouth. Mindless eating of chips and chocolate.

Dude I am so excited for that expansion!

modernfemme

weird, double post.

randyv99

Yeah I read these studies that focusd on diet soda years ago and that was one of my main criticisms, which is that any habit associated with a certain behavior would condition you to perform that behavior in response to stimuli. However, my diet soda drinking thing is relatively new (last couple years) and my exclusively diet or zero calorie drink thing is newer still. I should think that regular sodasor diet/zero calorie non-soda should have had the same effect but it doesn't seem to. Not that I've noticed anyway.

One of the biological explanation for the zero-calorie sweetened beverages encouraging overeating was that the brain responds as if the body is receiving nutrients but the body is not confirming that signal which leads to dissonance in that feedback regulation system thereby dulling your brain's ability to control your appetite. Which could partially explain why the United States, one of the largest (if not the largest) consumers of diet beverages has some of the worst problems with obesity. I'm sure someone less lazy than me can find some links to some of these studies.

But anyhoo yeah, I like the feeling and energy (and lack of chest burn) I have after drinking water anyway. I'm pretty much committing to weaning myself off the soda throughout the new year.

randyv99

P.S. Love being called Mr. Scientist. :laugh:

And yeah I score myself a B/B+ for the fitness but like a C- for my nutrition. These habits will take some time for me to break.

SandraMay1982

But. I have noticed that being a WoW (World of Warcraft) addict, with the new expansion coming out. I have haven't reverted to the "bad habit" I have when sitting here. I haven't been putting my hand to my mouth with food all week while gaming. Which. I think is an awesome habit to break.

So. It's probably all just the power of association. As said above. I associate gaming with food to mouth. Mindless eating of chips and chocolate.

Dude I am so excited for that expansion!

haha. I am working on the new loremaster. I have only played since March. So I didn't have the old one ANYWAY. a bit peeved that it took away most of my quests completed and I had to start ALL OVER again with most of them

(off topic nerd speak *gets back in box and goes to bed now*) haha.

rescuepete

You're right. Diet soda can be deceptively sneaky. It can have a whopper of a bad combo. It has the carbonation which can make you feel full and bloated when really you're not. It has the fake sugary taste that tricks your brain into thinking you've satiated some sweetness desire, and when your body realizes what you've done to it, it wants something else to fill that void. Like the aforementioned junk. Plus, you have that food memory joy sensor in your brain that may equate food happiness with diet sodas plus other junk, just as a rule for your own body.

Still, with all that, knowing better and all, I have one every now and again. How can you help it? For me, it's more a matter of restraining myself from knocking back a six pack in one day/sitting. I keep trying to retrain myself that what my body wants when I'm thirsty is water, but I think my body listens to my mind as well as i listened to my teachers growing up - stubbornly.

randyv99

For me, it's more a matter of restraining myself from knocking back a six pack in one day/sitting.

It's funny how a 12-pack every exam cycle can really help one to blow up over 4 years of college.

Azdak

By now you know that I like titling things in a way to draw people's attention, critiques, criticism and comments. I'm a glutton for a good debate. Anyhow, this is more of a personal observation. But as I've been seriously trying to respond to my body's needs rather than my wants these past three months, I have noticed something very peculiar: whenever I am drinking a diet soda, I have stronger urges for junk food (esp. sweets) than when I drink water. The same is not true of me drinking a non-diet drink. Now being a self-proclaimed scientist (and self-proclaimed pretty-much-everything-under-the-sun) I have read quite a few studies in the past linking diet drinks to poor food choices, over-eating and poor portion control but I never really noticed it in myself until today. In fact, I had not been craving anything at all until I started washing down my ridiculously unhealthy diet with diet soda today.

Has anyone noticed anything like this at all? Something you eat, drink or do that triggers your desire for something you'd rather not eat, drink or do and weren't even thinking about before you ate, drank or did that thing? <--Could this poorly stated statement masquerading as a question be any more convoluted?

Happy Sunday everyone.

Some of these studies fail to differentiate between *coincidental* and *causal* factors. The fact that behavior "x" is associated with outcome "y" does not mean that "x causes y".

The biggest problem with topics like this is that it is extremely difficult to control the powerful effect of auto-suggestion.

JaydeSkye

LOL! Ok, then from now on your name is Mr. Scientist

And, to answer the other poster - No, I do not eat french fries. I understand that many people can't give up all of these things, but if we start making excuses for this ONE thing, or that other thing, well before you know it - you're right back where you started from, eatting poorly. For me personally, if I'm going to put in the effort to eat healthy and to work out, then I want to maximize my potential, not fill my body up with crap. But, I really don't care if others do it, their bodies - their choices. I just said that I don't understand it, that's all.

randyv99

Some of these studies fail to differentiate between *coincidental* and *causal* factors. The fact that behavior "x" is associated with outcome "y" does not mean that "x causes y".

The biggest problem with topics like this is that it is extremely difficult to control the powerful effect of auto-suggestion.

Yeah I know! That's like a whole other post altogether. People (i.e. researchers) so often use epidemiological, observational or otherwise non-experimental data to draw conclusions that are truly not supported by their methods. But the one I'm thinking of wasn't done in humans and it had something to do with some levels of hormone and attraction to sweet water. Or something like that. Seriously someone, look this article up for me. I'm clearly too busy posting on MFP forums to do it myself.

alantin

I think I read or heard somewhere that artificial sweeteners trigger the insulin response without the sugar present, and that really screws your system up.

I was talking with some doctor somewhere while drinking a diet coke and all I remember about that was the guy was telling me something about nerve toxins and stuff. And that I drank regular for a while after that.. :laugh:

Now I have noticed that the healthier I make my diet, the less cravings for any sodas I seem to have. I still do buy them sometimes but nowadays I can have a half full bottle for a week before I remember to drink the rest of it. Never would have happened before!
I have noticed more craving for water and milk, with some chocolate powder in it, though..

whyflysouth

Idk, about whether it's association or not, but the other day I was at my parents house and they had a bag of Doritos and I couldn't believe they didn't have any pepsi around. For me that's like a requirement, you can't have Doritos without Pepsi, that's like having apple pie without ice cream - that's why I buy neither.

binary_jester

I did read a study that show people who consumed diet soda, on average, ate more calories than people who drank regular soda. I could go find the study, but I am feeling particularly lazy today.
From a personal standpoint, if I am dragging, I will grab a 44oz diet mt dew on my way to work. What I have noticed is I will drink less water throughout the day when i do that. Why...no idea.

modernfemme

I never drank soda before I discovered the skinny *****. Haha! I might have one once every couple of weeks.

With that being said, I know the reason I gained weight was because I was eating way too much of the "healthy" stuff. Olive oil, walnuts, avocado. All soooo healthy but pack quite the calorie punch.

It's all about moderation. If you don't enjoy the foods and feel like you're not missing out, awesome. But if you don't include the foods you love into your life, many of us will fall off the band wagon because it just becomes unrealistic.

just4peachy

But. I have noticed that being a WoW (World of Warcraft) addict, with the new expansion coming out. I have haven't reverted to the "bad habit" I have when sitting here. I haven't been putting my hand to my mouth with food all week while gaming. Which. I think is an awesome habit to break.

So. It's probably all just the power of association. As said above. I associate gaming with food to mouth. Mindless eating of chips and chocolate.

Dude I am so excited for that expansion!

Me freaking too! I don't play but bf does and I get LOADS of extra gym time when he has something else to occupy him!!

Azdak

I did read a study that show people who consumed diet soda, on average, ate more calories than people who drank regular soda. I could go find the study, but I am feeling particularly lazy today.
From a personal standpoint, if I am dragging, I will grab a 44oz diet mt dew on my way to work. What I have noticed is I will drink less water throughout the day when i do that. Why...no idea.

I don't suppose it has anything to do with the fact that you are drinking 44 oz of fluid.....

binary_jester

I did read a study that show people who consumed diet soda, on average, ate more calories than people who drank regular soda. I could go find the study, but I am feeling particularly lazy today.
From a personal standpoint, if I am dragging, I will grab a 44oz diet mt dew on my way to work. What I have noticed is I will drink less water throughout the day when i do that. Why...no idea.

I don't suppose it has anything to do with the fact that you are drinking 44 oz of fluid.....

That is a riot. For some reason I was separating the two. I never put that towards my water count and really never thought about it that way. I almost viewed it as a food. Thanks.

alantin

How do you make those weird smileys?




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ceomrman

This is a neat topic!

A couple things - there's nothing bad about carbonation, as far as the science is concerned. If you want to believe it's evil, I can't stop you, but you're wrong. Some people might have bad responses or whatnot, of course, but the ingredients in soft drinks that are bad for you do not include carbonation.

Regarding soda and calorie consumption: this is the point of your question, and its interesting. A recent meta-analysis done by Yale researchers (that means a study of the studies that have been done so far) and published in the American Journal of Public Health (Vartanian, Schwartz, and Brownell, 2007, free on Google Scholar) found that drinking sugared soda was associated with overall higher caloric intake among participants in the 16 studies they looked at which focused on sugared soda. 16 more studies looked at diet soda or a mix of the two. It's hard to teach the stats right off the bat to anyone reading, but the researchers say that both categories were related to higher calorie intake, with r-values of 0.24 for sugared and 0.06 for mixed/diet soda. To me, in this context, a correlation of 0.24 indicates a large effect, while .06 is a moderate/small effect. it is impossible from this meta-analysis to draw conclusions about non-sugared soda in particular, though, since they only broke the studies into sugared and *mixed and/or non-sugared* groups. The 0.06 might actually be related to the sugared drinks in the "mixed or non-sugared" studies - there's no way to know.
Regarding soda and body weight: Calories don't matter, right? What we care about is maintaining a healthy weight. The same meta-study reported a 0.09 and 0.05 r-value for the relationship between overall body weight and sugar / mixed studies. Again, sugared appears worse than "mixed or non-sugared". These effects are smaller than calories alone, suggesting more is going on, but they are real, measurable effects that are not inconsequential.
Regarding soda and other health problems: Again, its not even really *weight* that many of us are concerned with - its *health*. The same meta-analysis looked at this question. Specifically, one very large and well done study on 92,000 women over 8 years found that the women who drank two or more servings of sugared beverage per day were twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as those who drank one or less per month. The amount of diet soda they drank had nothing to do with it. They controlled for caloric intake and BMI, so they were not just seeing that diet soda drinkers were more health conscious overall.
Other health effects were more modest and had less evidence, too. There's some evidence to suggest that soda drinkers have weaker bones, but that's easily enough explained by the fact that soda drinkers probably replace other beverages in their diets (like milk). That doesn't mean soda is bad, necessarily, but it suggests that it's not nutritional, in any case. Which is obvious. Some sodas are quite acidic, and most have coloring agents. The acids and colors certainly stain teeth. The acids and sugars together seem to promote tooth decay. Some of the coloring agents appear totally safe, others appear to be bad - our FDA is massively underfunded, so we don't really know for sure about lots of these chemicals. Most are probably perfectly fine. Some are probably not.
I encourage anyone who's interested to go look up that study! It's well done.
One real drawback that might actually be related to artificial sweeteners (provided you're not allergic) seems to be related to the brain's response to sweetness. It might be the case that artificial sweeteners fool the brain into releasing insulin, which is how your body regulates blood sugar. The sweet taste might cause your pancreas to release insulin to deal with the expected flood of sugar that all that sweetness on your tongue was screaming to the brain about.
But of course, your tongue was lying... there's no sugar in diet soda, so the extra insulin in your blood (IF IT IS THERE) would take out some blood sugar, causing you to have lower blood sugar. That's important because having low blood sugar can make you crave... sugar! BUT I don't think it is known yet whether the taste of artificial sugar actually triggers any meaningful insulin response. Typically, I think its reactionary - that is, the brain tells the pancreas to excrete more insulin when there's actually more sugar in the blood - not before - in which case, diet soda wouldn't affect anything. But its an interesting line of research, anyway!
Another potential problem might be even simpler. You might simply get used to very sweet tastes if eat a lot of non-sugar sweetened food. Sweeteners let you eat sweet food all the time whereas if you eat real sugar all the time, you're likely to be fat, diabetic, or dead before very long. So all that sweet might well desensitize your taste buds, so you want more sweet flavor in general. Since only some things can be or are sweetened with non-caloric sweeteners, you'd likely end up wanting to eat more sugar than otherwise.
**
Here's my own take on it, having been aware of the science for many years: sugared soda is CRAP. It is crap mainly because it is full of refined, simple sugars which wreak havoc on your poor pancreas. We are not made to eat this stuff. Back in the day, we got honey when we could beat the bears at stealing it from the bees, which means we didn't get a lot of honey! Our species has had no time to evolve along with ultra-rapidly changing diets. For 200,000 years, we barely ate any sugar. 10,000 years ago, we started eating potatoes and other not-very-good carbs as a result of agriculture. Now, bam, we eat refined white sugar, corn syrup, and similar garbage all day. Simple sugar is digested very quickly and dumped right from your gut into your blood, where of course, you really don't need it because you aren't likely to be running from a swarm of angry bees (or bears) in modern times. So your pancreas has to quick dump a bunch of insulin to prevent you from dying. Humans just suck at processing sugar.
Oh, and guess what your insulin is doing with all that sugar? It ain't going to waste. Heck, no! For 200,000 years, we never knew when there'd be a famine, or when we'd have to run for miles or when we'd twist our ankle and not be good at hunting and gathering. So our insulin takes the simple sugars and clicks them together like legos and packs them away... inside fat cells.

Artificial sweeteners might have some real drawbacks, but there's no way they're NEARLY as bad as sugar. If you're fat, CUT OUT THE SUGARED SODA. If you hate needles and don't want to get diabetes, CUT OUT THE SUGARED SODA.
If you've already done that and you're looking for help getting the rest of the way, then cutting out non-caloric sweeteners certainly won't hurt. There's even some reason to think it might help a little.

binary_jester

How do you make those weird smileys?




</offtopic>

I have collected quite a few to a photobucket account.

priskar

ceomrman - I've been sitting here reading the study all afternoon only to find you've posted a great synopsis of it here. Thanks!

I do agree, if you just have to have soda, sugared is probably the choice to make, Artificial sweeteners cross the blood brain barrier just like sugar and with so much controversy over what they can or cannot do to the body, why chance it? There's also the pancreatic link to consider.

I had a VSG and can never have carbonated drinks again which is okay with me. I wasn't a soda/beer drinker and if I did have a Dr. Pepper, it was one a day and it rarely got finished. But prior to my surgery I've purged my diet of artificial sweeteners and, for the most part, sugar and white starches. I can honestly say I have no cravings for anything. Curiously, on Thanksgiving, I had two small bites of the custard from the pumpkin pie but no crust. It was loaded with sugar! Too sweet tasting really but later that day and into the next I had cravings for sweets stuff. A lesson well learned. It's just not worth it to me.

JaydeSkye

I agree that artificial sweeteners aren't healthy, but the rest of what you wrote - I read it as if I were watching a Coca Cola commercial. Hahahahahhahaahaaaaaa

JaydeSkye

I agree that artificial sweeteners aren't healthy, but the rest of what you wrote - I read it as if I were watching a Coca Cola commercial. Hahahahahhahaahaaaaaa

randyv99

ceomrman - How DARE you write a longer post than me on my own message board topic. The NERVE of some people! :laugh:

Yeah I'm glad that you bothered to locate and summarize some of the research to which I've been alluding. It's really an interesting, if complicated and sometimes controversial read.

More importantly, notice how binary jester doesn't bother to shar his wonderful smilies with us. Can we say selfish?

ginnyroxx

maybe he just doesn't like you
he offered his special smiley notepad to me

neener neener :bigsmile: