Diet Soda and Weight Loss

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Replies

  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    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.d

    PH.D in what? Lol.... this is so funny. Lol.. do what you want... but thank you again for your opinion

    Molecular biology and biochemistry so yeah he's an expert. What's your training?

    Yeah, but does he have a Youtube channel?

    No :-(

    That wasn't a requirement for your dissertation

    No...but my dissertation is available online if you are ready for that thrilling gripping read. 159 pages of pure awesome, will leave you gripping your seat waiting to find out what happens next.


    Ok now I'm just jealous. Mine is over 500.

    Also:

    Physical chemist here with extensive background in biochemistry/biophysics chiming in to agree with the scientists on this thread.

    Aspartame is safe. The safety of aspartame has been extensively studied for many decades. There is overwhelming evidence of aspartame's safety.

    It's a dipeptide, that's two amino acids, the things that make up proteins. It does not trigger insulin, nor would it make any sense for it to do so. And it can help people who are trying to reduce calories in their diet by sweetening many beverages and foods.

    Anyone trying to frighten people away from it is not expressing a scientifically informed opinion, but rather is (1) mistaken (2) pushing an anti-science agenda, and/or (3) trying to sell something.

    I don't care if anyone uses aspartame or don't use it. I do care when people spread misinformation and blatant falsehoods, no matter how sincere in their beliefs they are.

    Damn....that is a looong dissertation. Although I imagine chemistry diagrams take up a lot of space when you constantly have to show reactions. Or are you saying a straight-up 500 pages of text?
  • missh1967
    missh1967 Posts: 661 Member
    Yeah it has nothing to do with the ingredients or biological process, it has to do with the number of calories. And there's this... if you're craving sugar and you eat or drink something that's sugar free, ya know, trying to trick your mind, your brain gets all ramped up for the sugar rush... like thinking "it's coming! it's coming, get ready, here it comes......" and then nothing. So you end up craving it even more which may lead to over doing it.

    Negative (for me). Zero calorie sodas or Crystal Light go a very long way to satisfying my sweet tooth.

  • almostanangel21
    almostanangel21 Posts: 143 Member
    I'm going with "I personally feel better if I avoid x," in this case, aspartame. I'm usually skeptical of click-bait headlines claiming that such and such will give you cancer, help you avoid cancer, help you lose weight, make you gain weight, make your brains turn green and run out your ears; generally, they're done on a ridiculously small sample size and never replicated. As an experiment, I cut daily diet sodas/crystal light out of my diet this past winter, and my mental state seems to have improved, even though it had no appreciable effect on my weight. So, tiny anecdotal evidence of a teeny correlation, at best. On the other hand... how much does it really hurt to cut out diet soda and switch to water for a week or two and see how it goes? If you don't feel any different, there's no difference on the scale, and you miss it after a couple of weeks or a month, it's not like the store's going to stop selling it.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    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.d

    PH.D in what? Lol.... this is so funny. Lol.. do what you want... but thank you again for your opinion

    Molecular biology and biochemistry so yeah he's an expert. What's your training?

    Yeah, but does he have a Youtube channel?

    No :-(

    That wasn't a requirement for your dissertation

    No...but my dissertation is available online if you are ready for that thrilling gripping read. 159 pages of pure awesome, will leave you gripping your seat waiting to find out what happens next.


    Ok now I'm just jealous. Mine is over 500.

    Also:

    Physical chemist here with extensive background in biochemistry/biophysics chiming in to agree with the scientists on this thread.

    Aspartame is safe. The safety of aspartame has been extensively studied for many decades. There is overwhelming evidence of aspartame's safety.

    It's a dipeptide, that's two amino acids, the things that make up proteins. It does not trigger insulin, nor would it make any sense for it to do so. And it can help people who are trying to reduce calories in their diet by sweetening many beverages and foods.

    Anyone trying to frighten people away from it is not expressing a scientifically informed opinion, but rather is (1) mistaken (2) pushing an anti-science agenda, and/or (3) trying to sell something.

    I don't care if anyone uses aspartame or don't use it. I do care when people spread misinformation and blatant falsehoods, no matter how sincere in their beliefs they are.

    Please let the 500 page count be counting appendices stuffed full of every reaction schematic, mechanism, structure, computational work, everything.

    Because this analytical chemist doesn't want any part of a 500 pages of text dissertation.
  • missh1967
    missh1967 Posts: 661 Member
    edited September 2016
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    What claim?

    This claim:
    The are medical facts that contradict diet soda.

    The one you keep repeating without any sort of support even though its a pretty extrodinary claim that a food additive on the market for 50 years has "medical facts" that "contradict it" (I assume you mean medical evidence of harm).

    Could you provide some with cited sources? You keep saying this but I am not aware of any medical evidence of toxicity or kidney damage or health issues related to consumption of aspartame. I am aware of a lot of misinformation on the internet though so if you end up posting a youtube video from Mercola.com I'm going to have to point out that might not be the most reliable source.

    You should go into politics. Your diplomacy is stellar. :)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    missh1967 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    What claim?

    This claim:
    The are medical facts that contradict diet soda.

    The one you keep repeating without any sort of support even though its a pretty extrodinary claim that a food additive on the market for 50 years has "medical facts" that "contradict it" (I assume you mean medical evidence of harm).

    Could you provide some with cited sources? You keep saying this but I am not aware of any medical evidence of toxicity or kidney damage or health issues related to consumption of aspartame. I am aware of a lot of misinformation on the internet though so if you end up posting a youtube video from Mercola.com I'm going to have to point out that might not be the most reliable source.
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    What claim?

    This claim:
    The are medical facts that contradict diet soda.

    The one you keep repeating without any sort of support even though its a pretty extrodinary claim that a food additive on the market for 50 years has "medical facts" that "contradict it" (I assume you mean medical evidence of harm).

    Could you provide some with cited sources? You keep saying this but I am not aware of any medical evidence of toxicity or kidney damage or health issues related to consumption of aspartame. I am aware of a lot of misinformation on the internet though so if you end up posting a youtube video from Mercola.com I'm going to have to point out that might not be the most reliable source.

    You should go into politics. Your diplomacy is stellar. :)

    I'm waiting on the you tube channel :bigsmile:
  • missh1967
    missh1967 Posts: 661 Member
    Sued0nim wrote: »
    missh1967 wrote: »
    You should go into politics. Your diplomacy is stellar. :)

    I'm waiting on the you tube channel :bigsmile:

    Would watch!
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    daniip_la wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    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.d

    PH.D in what? Lol.... this is so funny. Lol.. do what you want... but thank you again for your opinion

    Molecular biology and biochemistry so yeah he's an expert. What's your training?

    Yeah, but does he have a Youtube channel?

    No :-(

    That wasn't a requirement for your dissertation

    No...but my dissertation is available online if you are ready for that thrilling gripping read. 159 pages of pure awesome, will leave you gripping your seat waiting to find out what happens next.


    Ok now I'm just jealous. Mine is over 500.

    Also:

    Physical chemist here with extensive background in biochemistry/biophysics chiming in to agree with the scientists on this thread.

    Aspartame is safe. The safety of aspartame has been extensively studied for many decades. There is overwhelming evidence of aspartame's safety.

    It's a dipeptide, that's two amino acids, the things that make up proteins. It does not trigger insulin, nor would it make any sense for it to do so. And it can help people who are trying to reduce calories in their diet by sweetening many beverages and foods.

    Anyone trying to frighten people away from it is not expressing a scientifically informed opinion, but rather is (1) mistaken (2) pushing an anti-science agenda, and/or (3) trying to sell something.

    I don't care if anyone uses aspartame or don't use it. I do care when people spread misinformation and blatant falsehoods, no matter how sincere in their beliefs they are.

    Please let the 500 page count be counting appendices stuffed full of every reaction schematic, mechanism, structure, computational work, everything.

    Because this analytical chemist doesn't want any part of a 500 pages of text dissertation.

    You have to write all the pages regardless of whether they're appendices or not. :smile: That said, my thesis (organic chemistry PhD) was probably only about 200 pages including everything. And I had a lot of it written before I officially started writing because my supervisor made us write the experimental section for everything as we did it (which turned out to be great advice - as annoying as it was at the time).
  • dykask
    dykask Posts: 800 Member
    Yeah it has nothing to do with the ingredients or biological process, it has to do with the number of calories. And there's this... if you're craving sugar and you eat or drink something that's sugar free, ya know, trying to trick your mind, your brain gets all ramped up for the sugar rush... like thinking "it's coming! it's coming, get ready, here it comes......" and then nothing. So you end up craving it even more which may lead to over doing it.

    I think this is nonsense, at least for me. Maybe if someone is addicted to sugar it could happen. You are describing something like an addiction withdrawal.
  • biggafadda
    biggafadda Posts: 23 Member
    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?

    Effects of stevia, aspartame, and sucrose on food intake, satiety, and postprandial glucose and insulin levels.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900484/
    Only free access study I could find at the moment.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    The dissertation in its entirety exceeded 500 pages. Much of this was already written as nearly everything came from my published peer-reviewed work. Keep in mind that 3d images of protein-protein interactions, models of active sites, potential energy surfaces, reaction potential energy graphs, torsion angle charts take up a lot of space (and a lot of time to produce) . This did not include the original code I wrote a means to an end.

    Computational/theoretical work is an entirely different beast and can result in elegant, short dissertations or mighty monsters.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    daniip_la wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    steph7007 wrote: »
    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.d

    PH.D in what? Lol.... this is so funny. Lol.. do what you want... but thank you again for your opinion

    Molecular biology and biochemistry so yeah he's an expert. What's your training?

    Yeah, but does he have a Youtube channel?

    No :-(

    That wasn't a requirement for your dissertation

    No...but my dissertation is available online if you are ready for that thrilling gripping read. 159 pages of pure awesome, will leave you gripping your seat waiting to find out what happens next.


    Ok now I'm just jealous. Mine is over 500.

    Also:

    Physical chemist here with extensive background in biochemistry/biophysics chiming in to agree with the scientists on this thread.

    Aspartame is safe. The safety of aspartame has been extensively studied for many decades. There is overwhelming evidence of aspartame's safety.

    It's a dipeptide, that's two amino acids, the things that make up proteins. It does not trigger insulin, nor would it make any sense for it to do so. And it can help people who are trying to reduce calories in their diet by sweetening many beverages and foods.

    Anyone trying to frighten people away from it is not expressing a scientifically informed opinion, but rather is (1) mistaken (2) pushing an anti-science agenda, and/or (3) trying to sell something.

    I don't care if anyone uses aspartame or don't use it. I do care when people spread misinformation and blatant falsehoods, no matter how sincere in their beliefs they are.

    Please let the 500 page count be counting appendices stuffed full of every reaction schematic, mechanism, structure, computational work, everything.

    Because this analytical chemist doesn't want any part of a 500 pages of text dissertation.

    You have to write all the pages regardless of whether they're appendices or not. :smile: That said, my thesis (organic chemistry PhD) was probably only about 200 pages including everything. And I had a lot of it written before I officially started writing because my supervisor made us write the experimental section for everything as we did it (which turned out to be great advice - as annoying as it was at the time).

    I know you have to write them, but I feel a big difference between writing 500 pages of text and having 200 pages of images/reactions.

    My advisor doesn't require us to write our dissertation as we go, but I had heard it was a good idea, so I have my first section written based on my first publication.
    tomteboda wrote: »
    The dissertation in its entirety exceeded 500 pages. Much of this was already written as nearly everything came from my published peer-reviewed work. Keep in mind that 3d images of protein-protein interactions, models of active sites, potential energy surfaces, reaction potential energy graphs, torsion angle charts take up a lot of space (and a lot of time to produce) . This did not include the original code I wrote a means to an end.

    Computational/theoretical work is an entirely different beast and can result in elegant, short dissertations or mighty monsters.

    That's what I was hoping to hear.

    My dissertation (based off of what my first publication looks like) is going to have at least a hundred pages of images and graphs. The amount of SEM and TEM images I have already is bordering on ridiculous.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,328 Member
    Yeah it has nothing to do with the ingredients or biological process, it has to do with the number of calories. And there's this... if you're craving sugar and you eat or drink something that's sugar free, ya know, trying to trick your mind, your brain gets all ramped up for the sugar rush... like thinking "it's coming! it's coming, get ready, here it comes......" and then nothing. So you end up craving it even more which may lead to over doing it.

    No, your body does not work that way.

  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,328 Member
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    I'm going with "I personally feel better if I avoid x," in this case, aspartame. I'm usually skeptical of click-bait headlines claiming that such and such will give you cancer, help you avoid cancer, help you lose weight, make you gain weight, make your brains turn green and run out your ears; generally, they're done on a ridiculously small sample size and never replicated. As an experiment, I cut daily diet sodas/crystal light out of my diet this past winter, and my mental state seems to have improved, even though it had no appreciable effect on my weight. So, tiny anecdotal evidence of a teeny correlation, at best. On the other hand... how much does it really hurt to cut out diet soda and switch to water for a week or two and see how it goes? If you don't feel any different, there's no difference on the scale, and you miss it after a couple of weeks or a month, it's not like the store's going to stop selling it.

    Because I love diet soda and our city water tastes like crap, that's why.

    Same for me. Our city water tastes and smells like a swimming pool. I enjoy diet soda, and that mental enjoyment is an important part of being able to sustain my calorie deficit.
  • dykask
    dykask Posts: 800 Member
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    I'm going with "I personally feel better if I avoid x," in this case, aspartame. I'm usually skeptical of click-bait headlines claiming that such and such will give you cancer, help you avoid cancer, help you lose weight, make you gain weight, make your brains turn green and run out your ears; generally, they're done on a ridiculously small sample size and never replicated. As an experiment, I cut daily diet sodas/crystal light out of my diet this past winter, and my mental state seems to have improved, even though it had no appreciable effect on my weight. So, tiny anecdotal evidence of a teeny correlation, at best. On the other hand... how much does it really hurt to cut out diet soda and switch to water for a week or two and see how it goes? If you don't feel any different, there's no difference on the scale, and you miss it after a couple of weeks or a month, it's not like the store's going to stop selling it.

    Because I love diet soda and our city water tastes like crap, that's why.

    Same for me. Our city water tastes and smells like a swimming pool. I enjoy diet soda, and that mental enjoyment is an important part of being able to sustain my calorie deficit.

    It is a choice. The unknown risks against one thing vs another. At least studies have pretty well failed to prove that diet soda causes weight gain. The same can't be claimed about sugar sweetened sodas.

    Personally the Tokyo water tends to have a little too much chlorine, or at least is smells that way at times. While I'm drinking more of it I also drink bottled water (which is cheap in Tokyo) and unsweetened teas. Some diet soda is nice, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there some harm from it.
  • dragon_girl26
    dragon_girl26 Posts: 2,187 Member
    edited September 2016
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    I'm going with "I personally feel better if I avoid x," in this case, aspartame. I'm usually skeptical of click-bait headlines claiming that such and such will give you cancer, help you avoid cancer, help you lose weight, make you gain weight, make your brains turn green and run out your ears; generally, they're done on a ridiculously small sample size and never replicated. As an experiment, I cut daily diet sodas/crystal light out of my diet this past winter, and my mental state seems to have improved, even though it had no appreciable effect on my weight. So, tiny anecdotal evidence of a teeny correlation, at best. On the other hand... how much does it really hurt to cut out diet soda and switch to water for a week or two and see how it goes? If you don't feel any different, there's no difference on the scale, and you miss it after a couple of weeks or a month, it's not like the store's going to stop selling it.

    Because I love diet soda and our city water tastes like crap, that's why.

    Same here. Usually during the summer our city water smells like a swimming pool. If there is an extended drought, it goes from that to smelling like fish. Not exactly what you want to make your morning joe with..
  • dykask
    dykask Posts: 800 Member
    How many more years of research has to flow into the same thing for the last person to be satisfied? The consensus on aspartame is the most confident "ain't nothing wrong with it" I've ever seen in any substance.

    Aspartame is far from the only artificial sweetener. Additionally the studies done are have been one sided, both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics studies should be done. The problem is the FDA requirements. But why fear, the US government has never been wrong with diet or drugs!
  • tamms_1965
    tamms_1965 Posts: 38 Member
    I gave up aspartame, because I seemed to get hungrier after I had one and always wanted a snack. I craved carbs. Since I switched to unsweetened tea and water, I can go without snacking. This was the best thing I did in my weight loss journey 44 lbs ago. I'm also a former food scientist and hated that I was addicted to Diet Coke. I'm 90% free of all processed foods now.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited September 2016
    How are you defining "processed"? People so often seem to define it in unusual, counterintuitive ways.

    Anyway, I don't really drink diet coke at the moment (cutting down on caffeine and coffee is my preferred source), but have gone off and on, and absolutely zero problems quitting snacking when I was drinking an occasional diet soda. If anything it was an easy and satisfying replacement for a snack if I wanted something between meals (so is coffee).
  • monicaw44
    monicaw44 Posts: 71 Member
    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?

    it does it to me, I had to stop eating the 'fake sugar'.
  • monicaw44
    monicaw44 Posts: 71 Member
    monicaw44 wrote: »
    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?

    it does it to me, I had to stop eating the 'fake sugar'.

    I do drink diet soda. not all the time though.

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,988 Member
    monicaw44 wrote: »
    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?

    it does it to me, I had to stop eating the 'fake sugar'.
    That's an anecdote though. Peer reviewed clinical studies overall don't show it.
    If people are gaining weight, it's not because of the diet soda. It's because they are eating more than they need to.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
    edited September 2016
    monicaw44 wrote: »
    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?

    it does it to me, I had to stop eating the 'fake sugar'.

    It does what to you, specifically, and how do you know that's what it's doing?
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    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?

    I would ask for a link, but I'm sure you've already been asked and posted them somewhere in the conversation.

    Whatever that article is, it's 100% off. The only thing that causes weight gain is a surplus of calories. ;)