diet cokes...what's ur view??

I'll have a diet coke once in awhile (mostly for an afternoon caffeine boost), but I don't drink pop (yeah, I said it) all that often. When I do, it's usually because I'm having a Coke craving, and then it's Classic all the way, baby. It's worth budgeting in those calories for me on rare occasion!

someone commented on one of my posts about diet cokes and them not being good for, what's your view and are you for or against?

There are two mindsets to the whole diet soda thing (in general).

On the one hand, you have the people who say that anything with zero calories is going to be better for you than those that have high fructose corn syrup (or even sugar, depending on what is sold in your area). And they make Diet Coke with Splenda, so if you have an aversion to aspartame you can buy that--if you can find it.

On the other hand, in addition to zero calories, you're also getting carbonated water -- which, in excess, is not good for you. You're also getting caffeine, unless you get the caffeine-free variety (which has aspartame and carbonated water), which in excess is not good for you. And some will even go so far as to say the caramel coloring is not good for you (in excess).

I was a die-hard Diet Coke drinker for many, many years. In the last year I gave it up (as well as other diet sodas) for the most part. And I'm personally happy that I have. I feel eliminating that, along with making changes to my diet, exercising, and (full disclaimer) getting LAP-BAND surgery, has been beneficial to weight loss.

I say given it up "for the most part" because in some situations I've had some, but I've had to do it in small quantities...like 6oz at a time.

I guess you can place me in the first camp who is more "pro diet soda over regular soda" but honestly, if you can wean yourself off of carbonated beverages in general, I think you'll be better off.

Just putting my 2 cents in, even though it's a penny for my thoughts...so someone is making a penny...

I'm against anything that has aspartame in it.

Why?

Speaking from experience, but not to get too far off the topic of this thread, aspartame has had a not very pleasant effect on me after years of consumption, including memory loss. It's an artificial sweetener, compared to some of the more modern sweeteners that are derived from sugar (but, yes, are still artificial).

I hate all soda.

iet Sodas May Be Hard on the Kidneys
Women Who Drink 2 or More Diet Sodas Daily Double Their Risk of Kidney Function Decline, Study Shows
By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Nov. 2, 2009 -- Diet soda may help keep your calories in check, but drinking two or more diet sodas a day may double your risk of declining kidney function, a new study shows.

Women who drank two or more diet sodas a day had a 30% drop in a measure of kidney function during the lengthy study follow-up, according to research presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in San Diego.

"Thirty percent is considered significant,'' says researcher Julie Lin, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a staff physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. That's especially true, she says, because most study participants had well-preserved kidney function at the start of the study.

Diet Soda and Kidneys: Study Details

The researchers evaluated 3,256 women already participating in the Nurses' Health Study who had submitted dietary information, including their intake of sugary beverages -- sugar-sweetened drinks, sugar-sweetened soda, and artificially sweetened soda. Sugar-sweetened drinks included soda, fruit juices, punch, and iced tea.

Information was also available on measures of kidney function. Their median age was 67.

Lin's team looked at the cumulative average beverage intake, derived from food questionnaires completed in 1984, 1986, and 1990. The women replied whether they drank the beverages less than once a month, one to four times a month, two to six times weekly, once daily but less than twice, or twice a day or more often.

Diet Soda and Kidneys: Study Results

When the researchers compared kidney function of the women in 1989 and 2000, they found that 11.4% or 372 women had a kidney function decline of 30% or more. When they looked at the diet information, they found that the 30% decline in kidney function was associated with drinking two or more artificially sweetened sodas a day. This was true even after taking into account factors such as age, high blood pressure, diabetes, and physical activity.

Put another way: the women who drank two or more diet sodas a day had a decline in their glomerular filtration rate, a measure of kidney function, of 3 milliliters per minute per year. ''With natural aging, kidney function declines about 1 mL per minute per year after age 40," Lin says. No link was found with the other beverages. And less than two sodas a day didn't seem to hurt. "We didn't see any association up to two artificially sweetened beverages a day," Lin says.

''A serving was reported as either a glass, a can, or a bottle of a beverage," Lin tells WebMD. ''It was not more specific than that."

''The mechanisms aren't clear," Lin says of the association she found. In another study she presented at the meeting, she found higher salt intake is also associated with faster kidney function decline.

All of the participants were women, so Lin can't say for sure that the association holds for men, although she says there is ''no biological reason to think it wouldn't."

About 20 million Americans have some evidence of chronic kidney disease, according to the society. Kidney disease diagnoses have doubled each of the last two decades.

Diet Soda and Kidney Function: Industry Input

Asked to review the study findings, Maureen Storey, senior vice president of science policy for the American Beverage Association, says in a prepared statement: "It's important to remember that this is an abstract presented at an annual meeting." She notes that the research needs further scrutiny by researchers.

She acknowledges that kidney disease is serious but that diabetes and high blood pressure account for the majority of kidney disease cases, ''not consumption of diet soda."

Diet Soda and Kidney Function: Dietitian's View

In reviewing the study, Connie Diekman, RD, director of university nutrition for Washington University, St. Louis, wonders if the link might have come about because of long-term consumption, as many of the participants were older adults.

The link found, she says, "calls for more studies where actual intake can be assessed, rather than taking the information from food frequency questionnaires, which could be subject to mistakes."

Diet drinks, she says, are ''generally low in important health-promoting nutrients, so keeping them as a small part of your eating plan would be a smart step."

Aspartame and Splenda give me a nasty headache so I had to stop drinking diet soda.

For instance, actually, I was once told that Diet sodas didn't cause tooth decay. LOL (first off, that's not true). Our mouths are a part of our body, among everything else.

Any dentist will tell you that tooth decay comes from any sugars (real or fake) and improper hygiene to combat it. If you're dental hygiene is good it's not an issue. Drinking a minimum of 2 diet sodas a day, I've never had my dentist tell me my teeth are bad. Of course I do go every 6 months and I regularly floss and brush 2 times a day.

I love when people post studies that are absolutely useless. A study that didn't specifically track the amount of soda consumed, other than "number of drinks" (regardless of size, an entire 2 liter bottle at once is one drink, 2 shot glasses full would be two,) and shows an "association," not a causation, or anything even close to clinical evidence. Absolutely useless, other than scaremongering.

Especially a study that relies on questionnaires, things that people routinely forget things and fill out wrong. There is no possible way to do any kind of scientific control in a study like that.

Using tooth decay as an argument is pointless and worth ignoring, as EVERYTHING you consume, even water, can damage your teeth. Water can have a pH from 7, all the way down to 5, which can put it at the same acidity of coffee and soda. Which was the entire point of my earlier response, tooth decay is a weak argument. As for the study, no causation, no controls, no real rigor, means no useful results.

Completely false and totally debunked. Aspartame is actually made out of 2 amino acids that your body actually makes on it's own. If aspartame was really poison and caused all those problems, your own body would be killing you, too, whether you drink diet soda or not.

Using tooth decay as an argument is pointless and worth ignoring, as EVERYTHING you consume, even water, can damage your teeth. Water can have a pH from 7, all the way down to 5, which can put it at the same acidity of coffee and soda. Which was the entire point of my earlier response, tooth decay is a weak argument. As for the study, no causation, no controls, no real rigor, means no useful results.

Do you believe it is untrue that soda in all forms slows the body's absorption of calcium?
Here's my problem, I don't care for the taste of diet sodas, so it's all academic to me, & I'm simply not interested enough to research the heck out of it. Lol all the signs pointing to it NOT being as good as water are frankly good enough for me,admittedly possibly partially because I have no personal interest in making a case for it.

You know what, though, don't, because I guess you just told me that "the entire point of your argument" was... Ignoring my earlier point? Along with your other posts, well, I guess people so condescending & rude are rarely convincing to me. They instead come off like they are so desperate to "prove" their point and so defensive about the topic that I find their points a little suspect. If I ever fall in love with diet soda, I'll just look more into it myself, maybe I'll be more impressed with it than i think, ormaybe ill even try to convince myself it's uber-healthy. Lol

And yeah, answering the op's Q, I still dont think diet soda is the equivalent of water, but I think it's probably fine to do on a moderate basis-- like many other things that aren't necessarily great.

I was a major diet coke drinker in the past.....Now, water is my main friend....Staying hydrated with clear fresh water is the best for my personal health. I really do feel a difference in health.

I probably have 1 diet coke monthly...and that's just fine.

its all about moderation!! and that goes for everything you eat and drink !! Enjoying a soda once and awhile is ok !!

I don't drink them often because I feel thirstier after I drink them due to the sodium. I also have to have the caffeine-free (caffeine keeps me awake no matter what time of day I drink it!). In restaurants, I usually have to do water because they never have anything that's diet AND caffeine-free, so I carry the little Crystal Light drink packets to flavor my water with. I will enjoy a soda once in a while, but not often. If you like them, though, enjoy them. I just wouldn't let ALL of your water intake be from sodas.

I love diet coke!