Diet sodas

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  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
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    Steve did you even read the study?

    "Characteristics of the participants

    Although 268 self-reported aspartame sensitive individuals (AS) inquired, only 53 (21 men, 32 women) attended and gave their informed consent to take part in the study, with only 48 completing both sessions. Participants were matched by age and sex to 49 aspartame non-sensitive (NS) individuals (23 men, 26 women) (Table 1). Two participants (1 man, age 65 and 1 woman, age 70 years) from the aspartame sensitive group and one non-sensitive participant (1 man, age 41 years) dropped out due to changes in personal circumstances. One man was excluded because of a self-limiting gastro-intestinal upset during one session (revealed when unblinded to be after control). "

    Steve the fact they did have one that was "excluded" due to gastro-intestinal upset mean anything to you about the impact aspartame my have on some humans. Did they screen for low levels of folic acid, etc or just take "self reporting" info to make a validity statement on the study?

    As a doctor I see more questions than answers coming from this study and that was even before I knew politics could have been a real concern.


  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    nutritionalmagnesium.org/diabetes-mellitus-linked-to-magnesium-deficiency/

    This refers to food/drink containing Aspartame only and may be debatable but we do understand formaldehyde is better for us after we get to the funeral home instead of in our food while living.

    "2.Use stevia as a natural sweetener which comes from the leaves of a plant that grows in South America and avoid the sugar substitute aspartame, which can worsen blood sugar control and cause weight gain, headaches, nerve damage, and eye damage, because it is made partly from wood alcohol, which breaks down to formaldehyde."

    Aspartame is actually safer than stevia. Here is the acceptable daily intake of various sweeteners, the last column is calculated for a 60 kg (132 pound) person so most people have an even higher acceptable intake:

    878uj3xjas87.png

    * Number of Tabletop Sweetener Packets a 60 kg (132 pound) person would need to consume to reach the ADI. Calculations assume a packet of high-intensity sweetener is as sweet as two teaspoons of sugar.
    **ADI established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)
    *** NS means not specified. A numerical ADI may not be deemed necessary for several reasons, including evidence of the ingredient's safety at levels well above the amounts needed to achieve the desired effect (e.g., as a sweetener) in food.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
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    https://sco.edu/assets/1813/2015-16_catalog.pdf

    AnvilHead I expect you have seen the above since my profile page provides access to all that I know about myself. :)

    When I graduated in 1986 optometrists where not licensed to perform laser surgeries as is possible today (at least in KY) so that was not part of our curriculum at that point in time. We were told we had more hours of pharmacology than MD.'s because that was when OD.'s were first starting to prescribe therapeutic medicine but I never checked the validity of that statement.

    As many on the forums know there is nothing false by intent with my profile, photo and posts. Anyone here to stroke their egos, mislead others or bring harm to MFP in a way that could have negative consequences to themselves or others who may not have the years of training and research needed to quickly profile any post for any validity that it may contain does concern me.

    I was 63 when I found my current way of eating macro that is enabling me to walk death backwards and renew my hope for more time with our teenage kids. Now at 65 my health/health markers are better than when I was 45 years of age. At my age I know ego is more of a limiting factor than an asset when compared to truth about my health and to help encourage those younger than I am. I do others not to wait until it is almost too late to stop eating for death and start eating for life.

    Now that I have come to understand some of the triggering factors of Ankylosing Spondylitis that may be avoided or reversed by finding the right macro to eat I am much happier so I can help our children not to become old deformed people before their time should they develop AS at some point so as to avoid the limitations I have had for 40 years. After SCO I got into daily physical therapy and wound up having both hips replace on the morning and afternoon 1 Aug 1991. As a hobby I trained myself on PC repair and that evolved into computer sales then a software developing for the property insurance industry accidentally over time. I have a great staff that covers my physical and mental limitations. :)

    My driving force has been the kids and helping with home schooling them for the past 12 years. In 2011 the kids and I did a 31 day 8000 mile motor home trip through 17 states. I used the old $7995 1992 MH to teach home and auto repair for four years before the successful trip. I think they regretted asking for a MH at the age of 9 before it was over. :) They both learned to surf in the Pacific for their 14th birthdays. I actually see my backgrounds, education and physical limitations pushing through the pain for 40 years as being positive now at the age of 65.

    In 30 days after starting my new WOE Oct 2014 my pain was knocked down from pain levels of 7-8 to 2-3 and are even a bit lower most days 1.5 years later. Finding the right eating macro permitted my side stepping of starting Enbrel injections for pain manage but due its risk of cancer especially in my then state of health I dove into how reading how to prevent, treat or eliminate that risk in my life by studying research outside of the USA. Not only do I not have a real fear of cancer, the same goes for heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, etc. While I may die tonight I now know how to eat and treat myself to greatly decrease the odds of my premature death.

    After 40 years of living with life defining IBS like symptoms it is such a blessing for the symptoms to have resolved and totally gone for over a year now. I could go on and on but will post more if you wish for me to do so. Google MD, OD, DO, PhD, etc for their full meaning if you have anymore questions on the meaning of there terms or how you earn those titles. Look in the SCO catalog for educational requirements for admission. I learned a lot of how read research learning my two undergrad degrees.

    AnvilHead if you hold a terminal degree in any healthcare field you know 30 years down the road most of the facts learned in grad school are no longer factual. Most of what I post comes from my 500+ hours of reading old and new research on the subjects that I post about over the past two years.

    Again I do not practice posting info that I am not willing to support in a courtroom nor should anyone. Any doctor in any field of healthcare has been taught it is not if you will but when you will have to make your case in a courtroom.

    One's education only really starts after earning a terminal degree especially in any healthcare field it seems in hindsight.



  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    nutritionalmagnesium.org/diabetes-mellitus-linked-to-magnesium-deficiency/

    This refers to food/drink containing Aspartame only and may be debatable but we do understand formaldehyde is better for us after we get to the funeral home instead of in our food while living.

    "2.Use stevia as a natural sweetener which comes from the leaves of a plant that grows in South America and avoid the sugar substitute aspartame, which can worsen blood sugar control and cause weight gain, headaches, nerve damage, and eye damage, because it is made partly from wood alcohol, which breaks down to formaldehyde."

    Aspartame is actually safer than stevia. Here is the acceptable daily intake of various sweeteners, the last column is calculated for a 60 kg (132 pound) person so most people have an even higher acceptable intake:

    878uj3xjas87.png

    * Number of Tabletop Sweetener Packets a 60 kg (132 pound) person would need to consume to reach the ADI. Calculations assume a packet of high-intensity sweetener is as sweet as two teaspoons of sugar.
    **ADI established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)
    *** NS means not specified. A numerical ADI may not be deemed necessary for several reasons, including evidence of the ingredient's safety at levels well above the amounts needed to achieve the desired effect (e.g., as a sweetener) in food.

    Thanks for the chart.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
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    With Type 2 diabetes being the leading cause of blindness and caused by eating wrong macros for the most part one would hope all healthcare professions would be better trained. In talking with MD.'s it seems they about the same amount of nutritional training as OD's which is next to none.

    Anyone that trusts any post from social media at face value when it comes to nutritional advice is in a world of hurt I expect. There are people posting advice with ZERO medical training even.

    I am willing to post articles or the way that I eat but will not give advice to others how to eat because to do so I agree would be disingenuous by anyone one regardless of education.

    We are all different and what may be good for one might kill another.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    Wepz wrote: »
    You know, this is actually a very good question, something I have been curious about for some time.

    I have heard that Diet Drinks have a list of negative affects, especially the most common sweetener which is Aspartame.

    I am going to research into this, because drinking Diet Drinks instead of the full fat drinks like I have been doing will save me hundreds of calories per day.

    Full fat drinks? This is news to me.
    Is this like coke and yogurt?
    I love yogurt.
  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
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    stevencloser wrote: »
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    nutritionalmagnesium.org/diabetes-mellitus-linked-to-magnesium-deficiency/

    This refers to food/drink containing Aspartame only and may be debatable but we do understand formaldehyde is better for us after we get to the funeral home instead of in our food while living.

    "2.Use stevia as a natural sweetener which comes from the leaves of a plant that grows in South America and avoid the sugar substitute aspartame, which can worsen blood sugar control and cause weight gain, headaches, nerve damage, and eye damage, because it is made partly from wood alcohol, which breaks down to formaldehyde."

    The fact that methanol and formaldehyde are breakdown products of aspartame sounds scary to consumers. Therefore, it is important to know that formaldehyde is produced by our bodies every day in amounts thousands of times greater than you would ever get from aspartame, as it is a key metabolite that is needed to make other essential compounds, including DNA. Also, the known toxic effects of methanol relate not to formaldehyde, but to the build-up of formic acid in the blood. The breakdown of formic acid is slower than the breakdown of formaldehyde, so if there is a very large dose of methanol (or formaldehyde) coming into the body, formic acid can build up and that causes the adverse effects seen in methanol poisoning.

    To put this into perspective, studies in healthy adults and infants consuming up to 200mg per kg of body weight (50 times the amounts Americans consume on average), showed no change in the levels of formic acid in the blood (1,2).

    http://www.andeal.org/topic.cfm?cat=4089

    You just don't care about your sources anymore, do you?

    Anymore?
  • sashayoung72
    sashayoung72 Posts: 441 Member
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    I cut them out at the advice of a nutritionist and it really helped my hunger stop. I have read articles that diet sodas cause you to be hungrier but of course I ignored those, now i'm a believer. I have about a small glass a day or not at all and drink mostly water without add-ins because there's the fake stuff again.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
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    EvgeniZyntx wrote: »
    Wepz wrote: »
    You know, this is actually a very good question, something I have been curious about for some time.

    I have heard that Diet Drinks have a list of negative affects, especially the most common sweetener which is Aspartame.

    I am going to research into this, because drinking Diet Drinks instead of the full fat drinks like I have been doing will save me hundreds of calories per day.

    Full fat drinks? This is news to me.
    Is this like coke and yogurt?
    I love yogurt.

    I believe full fat soda is s British shorthand for regular (not diet) soda. I'm actually curious if the call all non diet products (of which there are diet versions) full fat.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    stevencloser wrote: »
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    nutritionalmagnesium.org/diabetes-mellitus-linked-to-magnesium-deficiency/

    This refers to food/drink containing Aspartame only and may be debatable but we do understand formaldehyde is better for us after we get to the funeral home instead of in our food while living.

    "2.Use stevia as a natural sweetener which comes from the leaves of a plant that grows in South America and avoid the sugar substitute aspartame, which can worsen blood sugar control and cause weight gain, headaches, nerve damage, and eye damage, because it is made partly from wood alcohol, which breaks down to formaldehyde."

    The fact that methanol and formaldehyde are breakdown products of aspartame sounds scary to consumers. Therefore, it is important to know that formaldehyde is produced by our bodies every day in amounts thousands of times greater than you would ever get from aspartame, as it is a key metabolite that is needed to make other essential compounds, including DNA. Also, the known toxic effects of methanol relate not to formaldehyde, but to the build-up of formic acid in the blood. The breakdown of formic acid is slower than the breakdown of formaldehyde, so if there is a very large dose of methanol (or formaldehyde) coming into the body, formic acid can build up and that causes the adverse effects seen in methanol poisoning.

    To put this into perspective, studies in healthy adults and infants consuming up to 200mg per kg of body weight (50 times the amounts Americans consume on average), showed no change in the levels of formic acid in the blood (1,2).

    http://www.andeal.org/topic.cfm?cat=4089

    You just don't care about your sources anymore, do you?

    Not to give credence to the anti-aspartame crowd but the measurement in Stegink studies of formic acid are possible flawed - poor baseline, criticised technique.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    Steve did you even read the study?

    "Characteristics of the participants

    Although 268 self-reported aspartame sensitive individuals (AS) inquired, only 53 (21 men, 32 women) attended and gave their informed consent to take part in the study, with only 48 completing both sessions. Participants were matched by age and sex to 49 aspartame non-sensitive (NS) individuals (23 men, 26 women) (Table 1). Two participants (1 man, age 65 and 1 woman, age 70 years) from the aspartame sensitive group and one non-sensitive participant (1 man, age 41 years) dropped out due to changes in personal circumstances. One man was excluded because of a self-limiting gastro-intestinal upset during one session (revealed when unblinded to be after control). "

    Steve the fact they did have one that was "excluded" due to gastro-intestinal upset mean anything to you about the impact aspartame my have on some humans. Did they screen for low levels of folic acid, etc or just take "self reporting" info to make a validity statement on the study?

    As a doctor I see more questions than answers coming from this study and that was even before I knew politics could have been a real concern.

    Gale, did you even read what you quoted? The man who got excluded had gastro-intestinal upset after eating the CONTROL meal, the one without aspartame.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    nutritionalmagnesium.org/diabetes-mellitus-linked-to-magnesium-deficiency/

    This refers to food/drink containing Aspartame only and may be debatable but we do understand formaldehyde is better for us after we get to the funeral home instead of in our food while living.

    "2.Use stevia as a natural sweetener which comes from the leaves of a plant that grows in South America and avoid the sugar substitute aspartame, which can worsen blood sugar control and cause weight gain, headaches, nerve damage, and eye damage, because it is made partly from wood alcohol, which breaks down to formaldehyde."

    Do you avoid foods with naturally occuring formaldehyde?

    cfs.gov.hk/english/whatsnew/whatsnew_fa/files/formaldehyde.pdf

    fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/ScienceResearch/ucm349473.htm

    atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=218&tid=39

    cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/formaldehyde

    In my case based on my personal experience with processed foods I try to avoid all added chemicals. Pears I have eaten and may eat again if I can fit them into my macro.

    It seems like fear-mongering to talk about the formaldehyde in diet soda without acknowledging that it is a natural part of some foods. Your original statements made it seem as if it wasn't something that was appropriate for people to consume. That just isn't true.
  • kmbrooks15
    kmbrooks15 Posts: 941 Member
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    You do have to be careful about sodium (sodas contain a lot of it), but you can certainly enjoy some diet sodas. I think it's like anything else--balance and moderation. I don't typically drink a lot of diet sodas, but I will have one occasionally when I get lunch out or something.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
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    singingflutelady wrote: »
    Sodas DO NOT contain a lot of sodium. 1 can of coke zero contains 30 mg of sodium. Where does the myth that soda contains a lot of sodium come from?

    From the same place that it causes cancer? ;)
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    The OP inquired about the impact of drinking diet soda on weight loss.

    OP - in order to lose weight, you must be at a calorie deficit. Period. Diet soda has zero (or technically less than 5) calories, so it can be a helpful addition to those trying to reduce calories if they were drinking caloric beverages and replace it with the zero calorie equivalent. From your post, it sounds like Diet Coke is already a part of your diet, so it wouldn't net you any positive effects to continue drinking it, but it also wouldn't negatively impact your weight loss efforts.

    There are some who claim that drinking diet soda or consuming artificial sweeteners leads to cravings. I have never experienced this, and I tend to think that if someone was already drinking Diet Coke (as you are), you would know already if this causes you to have cravings or any other adverse effects.

    TL/DR - keep drinking the Diet Coke in moderation. It will not hinder your weight loss efforts.

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