5 Reasons to Ditch Diet Soda and Artificial Sweeteners
With obesity on the rise and “calories” as the apparent culprit. The food industry began doing everything possible to reduce the number of calories in their products. This trend really took hold in the beverage industry. Where “Pop” if you are from good ole’ Michigan, more commonly known as “Soda” was targeted as a source of un-needed calories. Quickly we saw the rise of “diet” sodas and 0 calorie sodas – same great taste with fewer or NO CALORIES.
Usually, if something sounds too good to be true, it is. So just what are we trading our calories for? The following is a list of five reasons you should avoid artificial sweeteners, especially those in Diet Soda.
1. Increased Cravings of SWEET, High-Caloric foods, leading to Weight Gain
In a previous blog I spoke about how the tongue is an amazing thing. Your taste buds are sensitive, and they shed every 10-14 days. They also can become acclimated to what you eat. Artificial sweeteners are sweeter than the natural sugar found in fruit and other naturally sweet items. By consuming them regularly they can train your taste buds to enjoy, even crave sweeter foods. As you continue to consume more artificially sweetened items, your tongue becomes less sensitive to the sweetness found in whole food sources. This can make whole foods, such as peppers, squash, cucumbers, lettuce, eggs, and grass-fed meats seem bland, too bitter and overall unpalatable.
When one doesn’t like the taste of whole foods, they tend to compensate by either adding “sauces” that are high in sugar and unhealthy fats to their whole foods, or by reaching for High-Calorie, low nutrient foods to meet their cravings. This tends to lead one to consume more food in general causing weight gain and can lead to an array of other health concerns.
2. Increased risk for Metabolic Syndrome and Type II Diabetes
Zero-calorie sweeteners have been heavily marketed to the diet industry as a way to reduce caloric intake while still enjoying foods that have little to no nutritional value. The food and beverage industries have done a remarkable job at convincing us that these artificially sweetened low-nutrient foods and sports drinks are good for us, even better for us than whole fruits and water because they have “less calories”. Slowly they have turned us away from the whole food sources with cleaver marketing campaigns and let’s face it – good tasting fake food. The results of this new way of eating are catching up to us though. (1)
Scientists are finding that drinking the equivalent of one diet soda per day actually can lead to a 36% greater risk for metabolic syndrome and a 67% increased risk for type 2 diabetes. (2) It is still not 100% clear on why this is. Some studies are suggesting that certain artificial sugars actually go further than tricking just the tongue and are tricking the body into having an unintended insulin response. (3)
Metabolic syndrome: characterized by a clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, including hyperglycemia, raised blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and obesity (particularly central adiposity)
So, if you are grabbing that diet soda instead of the regular soda because you have been told it will help you avoid diabetes or excess weight gain, you may want to reconsider and weigh the other effects that the artificial sugar may be having on your body first.
3. Damaged Gut – Leading to Autoimmune Responses and Inflammation
If you read my previous blog on Gluten (here) you will learn why inflammation is so damaging to our body. It can cause an array of problems from neurological disorders to eczema and migraines. Artificial Sweeteners can also disturb the gut and cause inflammation. (4)
“High-intensity sweeteners are commonly used as sugar alternatives, being many times sweeter than sugar with minimal calories. Despite being “generally recognized as safe” by regulatory agencies, some animal studies have shown that these sugar substitutes may have negative effects on the gut microbiota. Sucralose, aspartame, and saccharin have been shown to disrupt the balance and diversity of gut microbiota.” (4)
4. Higher Overall Mortality
Probably associated with our previous three points, but studies have found that regularly drinking diet soda and consuming artificial sweeteners regularly is associated with a higher overall mortality. (5)
“Furthermore, frequent use of diet beverages has been associated prospectively with increased long-term risk and/or hazard of a number of cardiometabolic conditions usually considered to be among the sequelae of obesity: hypertension, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, depression, kidney dysfunction, heart attack, stroke, and even cardiovascular and total mortality.” (5)
5. Decline in Brain Health – potentially leading to an array of neurological diseases
If destruction of the gut and overall mortality doesn’t get you worried. Neurological disorders like dementia may. Many people fear living with dementia more than they fear death itself. Animal studies are beginning to point to aspartame (an artificial sweetener commonly found in soda) to a decline in the brain’s antioxidant defense status (6). This along with, increased inflammation and a damaged gut could lead to neurological disorders in older age.
By Anna Morris
About the Author
Anna Morris is a CTNC, Personal Trainer, has a BBA in Sales and Marketing and is the founder and owner of Morris Success and Fitness, LLC. Her life revolves around God, her Husband Kurtis and her two Boys, Waylon and Rowan. In addition to God, family and friends, her passions include: nutrition, cooking, developing routines, mobility training, soccer, running, and camping, Her mission is to spread the knowledge that God has given her to help 2,000 individuals define and achieve their personal vision for success and fitness in the next decade.