Healthify your supermarket choices.
Three Reasons to Rethink that Diet Coke You’re About to Drink
Care for some water? No way, get me a Diet Coke, or a Coke Zero.
Water is for washing hands, not drinking. And regular soft drinks and juice are full of sugars and calories.
So you decided a long time ago to go with artificial sweeteners. After a while, you didn’t even notice the slightly different taste compared to sugar sweetened beverages. And, diet drinks are zero calories. Win-win. Both taste buds AND body are happy. A no-brainer, right?
Not so fast.
A fascinating article – Artificially Sweetened Beverages Cause for Concern – recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), challenges the notion that artificial sweeteners are risk free.
The article’s author, David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, a Harvard professor and Founding Director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) clinic at Children’s Hospital, Boston, makes three important points, especially in the context of artificially sweetened drinks:
1. Our body gets confused by artificial sweeteners – the dissociation between sweet taste and calorie intake may put the regulatory system that controls hunger and body weight out of sync, thus sabotaging weight loss plans. A study on rodents showed that those fed saccharin actually gained weight compared to rodents fed sucrose.
2. We’re “Infantilizing” our taste sense – Artificial sweeteners are a hundredfold sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). By getting ourselves used to so much sweet, normal sweet flavors, of fruit for example, become bland and so do other healthful foods such as grains and vegetables, thus reducing our willingness to consume them and ultimately the quality of our diet.
3. Long term effects unclear – while there have been many studies on artificial sweeteners and disease such cancer, very few focused on long term weight gain. A seven year study, (San Antonio Heart Study), showed a relationship between diet drink consumption and obesity, but the causation is not clear. Consumption of artificial sweeteners is growing yearly. According to Ludwig,
If trends in consumption continue, the nation will, in effect, have embarked on a massive, uncontrolled, and inadvertent public health experiment. Although many synthetic chemicals have been added to the food supply in recent years, artificial sweeteners in beverages stand out in their ability to interact with evolutionarily ancient sensorineural pathways at remarkably high affinity.
What to do at the supermarket:
Whether sweetened with sugar, or artificially, our body does not need anything but water. And while switching overnight from a life sin H2O seems impossible, you can opt for baby steps such as watering down juice, consuming soda only during predefined meals / weekly activities, and getting your sweet tooth filled with juicy fruits such as oranges, melons, pears, and apples. If money is your motivator – think about the $500 a year a family of four can save by just switching to tap water.
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Yup, diet soda is bad news when it comes to personal health and to planetary health. Despite the efforts of the Coca Cola company, this is not a green or sustainable beverage. I wrote an open letter to climate activist Bill McKibben when he mentioned drinking Diet Coke in an essay. http://www.drsusanrubin.com/bill-walk-diet-coke/
I’ve gotta put my dentist hat on and say one more thing: diet soda is highly acidic. It’s not beneficial for your teeth or your bones.
Since when are grains a ‘healthful’ food? The exact opposite actually.
I got addicted to Diet Coke when I was in college and I finally gave it up about 6 years ago. It’s a disgusting habit and I feel so much better as a result!
Yes, artificial sweeteners are a problem, but it is hypocritical when a medical association publication opposes putting artificial substances into our bodies.
I’ve already done my part. I’ve quit taking all of the dozen or so BigPharna medications that my doctors want me to swallow daily. And I feel much better without all those drug side-effects.
But if everybody did that, then the medical journals wouldn’t make those huge profits from drug advertising and reprints of pro-drug articles.
Now that would be a good side-effect.
Dr. Ludwig wrote a blog post about his JAMA article on Thrive – here’s the link – http://childrenshospitalblog.org/artificially-sweetened-beverages-is-it-nice-to-fool-mother-nature/
Kristin thanks for the link! Our best wishes to Dr. Ludwig…
For me #1, # 2 and #3 are bogus.
#1 I lost weight,
#2 I love fruit/grains, etc.
#3–the jury is out? Is that the best you can do? It took little time to demonstrate that cigarettes are bad. If the jury was out on smoking, a lot more of us would smoke.
As a registered dietitian and consultant to the food and beverage industry, I am often asked by my clients about the safety of artificially sweetened drinks. My response is that artificial sweeteners can fit into a healthy diet. Artificial sweeteners, also known as low- or no-calorie sweeteners, have more than 200 scientific studies confirming their safety as low-calorie sweeteners. For clients who enjoy sodas, diet sodas are a great solution for them to enjoy a carbonated beverage without all the calories. Data, which have been published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and supported by the American Dietetic Association, speak to their safety and actually show that low- and no-calorie sweeteners can help you manage your weight. As you stated in your blog, Dr. Ludwig brings up the question of whether drinking artificially sweetened beverages may actually increase hunger. In studies from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed a person’s hunger reaction after drinking low-calorie beverages is not different than when he or she drinks water.
@Jim Purdy
Yep, you got it! Funny how it all falls into place when you look at it from the right perspective!
You have to wonder what the fallout will be when it is revealed that the FDA refused to approved NutraSweet over and over again, and then viola, suddenly its all ok? There’s a huge story there. When that comes out it’ll be way bigger than the Tobacco cases. WAY BIGGER.
@LittleMissGrok
Ummmmm… WHOLE grains are a healthful food. I’m always saddened by the carbo-phobic brainwashing.
Amen
AND AMEN AGAIN!!!!!! Thank you for that short bit of common sense.
@LittleMissGrok
I am a professional dietitian and grains being unhealthy could not be further from the truth. WHOLE grains are very healthy, and in fact required for a healthy body. They help reduce cholesterol, the risk of heart disease, colon cancer, and possibly other cancers. They are packed full of nutrients and fiber. Americans only consume about 1/3 the fiber they should. Fiber is required for a healthy digestive system and helps you control and lose weight. Breads and pastas that do not contain whole grains and whole wheat are nutritionally lacking and should be avoided. Buy whole wheat and whole grain items that do NOT contain enriched flour. Consuming little or no grains can be detrimental to one’s long term health.