The conclusion in this articles is that if you want to drink a soda then pick the one with real sugar. Stay away from artificial sweeteners because they are only in the soda to make it low-calorie, but its destroying your health. We will take a look at diet cokes in this article, and give you answers on why you should stay away from them.
This is a ingredients list of a Diet Coke from the Coca cola Company:
Carbonated Water, Colour (Caramel E150d), Phosphoric Acid, Sweeteners (Aspartame, Acesulfame K), Natural Flavourings incl. Caffeine, Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrate).
When looking at the sweeteners they are using Aspartame and Acesulfame K instead of regular sugar. Aspartame is made of the two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, which are also components of protein.
You have properly heard of them because they are in many foods. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its use it in foods since 1981. That does not mean that it is good to eat. You need to be your own judge on that.
Even a quick search on Pubmed will tell you a lot of truth. PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health.
Aspartame:
- Studies shows that giving animals aspartame in their diet would make them develop cancer – even at a low dose.
- In the United States, pregnant women extensively consume aspartame-containing soft drinks to prevent weight gain during pregnancy. This showed a possibility link to that aspartame may be a contributor to current increases in incidence of leukemia and other cancers in children.
- A large scale study suggest a potential direct association between higher artificial sweetener consumption (especially aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose) and increased cardiovascular disease risk.
- Further, a study showed how aspartame consumption can cause mood disorders, mental stress, and depression.
Acesulfame K have some of the same findings as Aspartame. Nevertheless, there is more data and studies on Aspartame. All studies are linked below.
Artificial Sweeteners are not helping with weight loss
The discovery of aspartame made it possible to replace sugar with a less caloric product. Even though, It now looks like that many safety studies have found aspartame to be more harmful to the body than having a more calories in a product.
In many clinical trails, artificial sweeteners did not lead to any significant weight loss in more than 1,000 participants. Actually, when looking at the combined data from 30 observational studies involving more than 400,000 participants it showed that artificial sweeteners are associated with obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and heart health problems.
These results are of the opposite of what artificial sweeteners are intended for, and it should make people think and question whether they really need to be eating these artificial sweeteners.
Its best to choose soda or candy made with natural sugar. Sugars are easily digested by the human body. Glucose molecules are small enough to pass directly through cell membranes and serve as fuel ofr body and brain.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042911/
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003950
https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071204
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8227014/
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20170717/do-artificial-sweeteners-raise-odds-for-obesity
https://foodinsight.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-acesulfame-potassium/