Taking healthy habits to improve our lifestyle or lose weight can be a bit chaotic when you don't have too many notions. For example, many people think that they benefit their body by substituting diet soda for a regular soda, but why not consider eliminating their consumption completely? Science is black and white when it comes to the harmful effects of too much added sugar in our diets. And guess what: most of this sugar we take in the form of a drink.
To find out if these light sodas are doing us a favor (or not), we turn to the studies that analyze it. Do you want to rethink your consumption?
Nutrients
Diet soda is essentially a mixture of carbonated water, artificial or natural sweetener, colors, flavors, and other food additives. It usually has very few or no calories and no relevant nutrition. For example, a 350 ml can of Diet Coke contains no calories, sugar, fat or protein and has 40 mg of sodium.
However, not all soft drinks that use artificial sweeteners are low-calorie or sugar-free. Some use sugar and sweetener together. For example, a can of Coca-Cola Life, which contains the natural sweetener stevia, contains 90 calories and 24 grams of sugar.
Although recipes often vary from brand to brand, some common ingredients in diet sodas include:
- Carbonated water. Although sparkling water can occur in nature, most soft drinks are made by dissolving carbon dioxide in water under pressure.
- Sweeteners. These include common artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, or an herbal sweetener like stevia, which are 200 to 13 times sweeter than regular sugar.
- acids. Certain acids, such as citric, malic, and phosphoric acids, are used to add acidity to soft drinks. They are also related to the erosion of dental enamel.
- Dyes. The most commonly used dyes are carotenoids, anthocyanins and caramels.
- flavorings. Many different types of natural juices or artificial flavors are used in diet sodas, including fruit, berry, herbal, and cola.
- Preservatives These help diet sodas last longer on the supermarket shelf. A commonly used preservative is potassium benzoate.
- Vitamins and minerals. Some diet soda manufacturers add vitamins and minerals to market their products as healthier, zero-calorie alternatives.
- Caffeine. Like regular sodas, many diet sodas contain caffeine. A can of Diet Coke contains 46 mg of caffeine, while Diet Pepsi contains 35 mg.
Do they help lose weight?
Since diet sodas are normally calorie-free, it would be natural to assume that they might help you lose weight. However, science suggests that the association may not be so straightforward.
Several observational studies have found that the use of artificial sweeteners and the consumption of large amounts of diet soda are associated with a increased risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome. Scientists have suggested that diet sodas may increase appetite by stimulating hunger hormones, altering sweet taste receptors, and triggering dopamine responses in the brain.
Another theory suggests that the correlation of diet sodas with weight gain may be explained by the fact that people with poor diet habits drink more. The weight gain they experience may be due to their existing dietary habits, not diet soda.
Contraindications of light soft drinks
The effects of light soft drinks are not as expected due to that low-calorie aura.
They confuse the body and brain
Whether you drink a regular glass of soda or the calorie-free version, your body doesn't know the difference of what's being put into it. Artificial sweeteners confuse our brains and bodies to some degree. When we taste something sweet, our body and brain react by releasing insulin because of the glucose circulating in our blood as a result of eating something with sugar. But when we ingest an artificial sweetener, we end up releasing insulin when we don't need to, since sweeteners don't affect blood glucose in the same way that caloric sweeteners do.
Over time, this can lead to insulin resistance or difficulty controlling blood sugar, which can lead to diabetes.
Related to diabetes
Continuing with the previous point, it seems that soft drinks should be safe; They are sugar and fat free! But the truth is that studies have repeatedly linked them to type II diabetes.
A study looked at more than 60.000 women, and found that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened beverages is associated with an increased risk of developing type II diabetes. However, the researchers found that the group that drank sugar-sweetened soft drinks was at higher risk. exist more studies who have confirmed these findings. It was observed that in both cases there is an increased risk of diabetes.
Still, A study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, concluded that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, not artificially sweetened beverages, is a risk factor for type II diabetes.
Associated with heart disease
Opening a can of diet soda is linked to increased blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease. In fact, the researchers found that women who drank two or more artificially sweetened beverages every day were 29% more likely to develop heart diseases and 23% more likely to suffer a stroke, according to a study this year.
They alter our gut microbiome
We are still discovering how our gut microbiome is responsible for avoiding certain diseases. A review February of this year found that some non-nutritive sweeteners (such as aspartame, stevia, and sugar alcohols) can alter our gut microbiota, and not in a healthy way. The researchers specifically alerted to saccharin and sucralose, ensuring that they negatively affected the good bacteria in our gut. The saccharin caused inflammation, while the stevia also slightly altered the bacteria in our intestines.
Bad option to eliminate sugar
Sometimes people use diet sodas as an aid to control their snack intake or to stop consuming regular sodas, but this is definitely not the right approach.
The artificial sweeteners found in these sodas can make a sugar addiction much harder to break. Many people think that by switching to an artificial sweetener they will be better eliminating sugar; but when you eat artificial sweeteners, the brain still thinks it's sugar. As a result, dopamine is released and the neurochemical that calls for more and more is released.