The Dangers of Diet Drinks
- Ciara Litchfield
- Jun 9, 2014
- 2 min read
Many people feel that Diet drinks are the angelic option when it comes to sodas. A 250 ml serving of Diet Coke has 105 less calories than the real thing. By cutting out the 26.5 g of sugar in a serving of Coke in exchange for the Diet kind you would think you were doing your body a favour... But have you ever asked yourself why Diet Coke still gives you that sugar fix?
The answer is aspartame and acesulfame-K which are artificial sweeteners. Im not going to pretend to be an expert on sweeteners but press, who dub sweeteners the devil, these two particular kinds are considered among the worst for our health. What I do know is that, while our bodies are very clever, they cannot tell the difference between sweeteners and real sugar. This means that when we consume sweeteners, say in the form of a Diet Coke, our bodies release Insulin into our blood in the same way they would if you had consumed a full fat coke. The release of this Insulin tells our cells there is too much sugar in the blood and that blood sugar levels need to be lowered. To do this our cells absorb the sugar (in the form of Glucose) which will then be stored as fat if it’s not burnt off.
This means that Diet Drinks still have a negative effect on our weight. The soaring of our blood glucose is accompanied by another negative event in the form of a crash. For every up there is a down and like us our bodies want to sustain the high. Studies have shown, by plotting blood sugar levels that it takes about 20 minutes for you to ‘crash’ after having a diet drink. This periods is often accompanied by a sugary snack, fuelled by your bodies need to get the high back that it just experienced. This means your 1 calorie diet drink is followed by an 86 calorie chocolate digestive, you can see how the cycle continues.
A study conducted by a series called ‘Secret Eaters’ (which you can catch on 4OD) showed that over 10 years drinking 2 or more diet drinks a day can cause a 500% increase in waist circumference compared to not drinking any.
Other than a negative effect on our weight the next big worry is the damage Diet drinks can do to our teeth. To put it in perspective, the Ph level of water is around 1 where the acid you find in a battery is 7; diet drinks are acidic with a Ph of around 3.2 which causes serious erosion to our teeth. A study published in the journal of General Dentistry found that the levels of dental erosion in diet drink consumers were equal to that of Cocaine addicts!
The best way to be sure is to stay away from Diet and full fat sodas all together. Opt for sugar free squash mixed with soda water to get your fizz fix.
