Diet Soda

Your body rocks at balancing pH levels. Your stomach sits at about pH 2, which is pretty damned acidic. Your body controls the pH level of your stomach with proton pumps. Need more acid? The pumps work harder! Already got enough acid? The pumps slow down. Diet soda isn't going to make a dent in this system. At most, diet soda means the pumps don't have to work as hard.

What about beyond the stomach? Ah... well when food leaves your stomach, it enters the small intestines, and the acidic mixture of food gets neutralized by secretions from the liver, the pancreas and I think even the intestinal lining (could be wrong about the lining).

But what happens when the nutrients are absorbed? Well, our blood has this awesome bicarbonate system to very carefully maintain pH levels at 7.4. Your blood pH just doesn't change UNLESS you're in a disease state that's reeking enough havoc that it over-comes the system. Diabetics can go into acidosis, for example, and other pathological conditions can allow CO2 to build up in your blood. You can also (very temporarily) change your blood pH by intentionally hyperventilating or holding your breath, but the pH change is very small. The feed-back systems in your brain will force you to adjust your breathing. By the way... it's not lack of oxygen that makes you breath when you're holding your breath... it's the change in the pH that's detected by your CNS that forces you to breath, and that pH change is caused by CO2 build up.

Now... caffeine CAN cause heart burn and caffeine is in your beloved diet mountain dew... but that's got nothing to do with the acid in your drink and every thing to do with the chemical molecule that is caffeine. I forget exactly how caffeine effects the stomach, but I think it increases the activity of the proton pumps.

By the way... please feel free to link the articles you've been reading. I'll gladly look at them. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. They sound counter to what I know about human physiology, but crazier things have happened.

I'm also not trying to discourage you from giving up diet soda if that's what you feel you need to do. That's a choice only you can make. I'm just a science nerd that likes to squash myths that sound like they're based in science when they're really not.

Been off diet soda since last July because I thought I was having health issues and wanted to cut as much artificial stuff as possible. I found it a bit difficult to start with but I realised how much soft drinks made me feel bloated; in addition, I was craving them all the time and literally shoving them in one after the other sometimes. I am glad I stopped that and I do not miss diet pop at all.