Can diet drinks promote obesity?

Our "sweet" set-point is a mess - as a country. The numbers don't lie. We're the fattest industrialized nation in the world, and even as our sugar consumption has soared, so too has our intake of artificial sweeteners in everything from diet sodas to meal bars, and muffins from the corner store.

Why is this? Well, fake sweetener is exponentially sweeter than sugar and exponentially cheaper too. So while a little goes a long way in your foods, including diet sodas, it doesn't just sweeten the soda, it talks to you.

That fake-sweet diet soda tells you what sweet is.
That fake-sweet diet soda informs you what effervescent is.

So when you have an apple, or piece of naturally sweet fruit like a strawberry - you think: wow! that's not sweet!

I encourage folks to give artificial sweeteners a rest. In my book JUST 10 LBS: Easy Steps to Weighing What You Want, I present support, systems and tools to get healthier with food. In my own life, I use only a couple pink a day now, from a high of ten a day snuck into my diet in diet sodas and other foods! I'm no fan of the blue and yellow. Give your body a chance to restart the sweet set-point and see how nature intends you to taste, eat and feel with your food. It needn't be a fight or a war, but getting there might just take you outside your comfort zone.

Have a water. Green tea. Sparkling water, and mint-citrus flavored water too.

Lydia Bartoshuk's work in this area speaks to the role of classical conditioning in why diet drinks can often be contributors to obesity. Basically - if it tastes sweet, our body thinks sugar is coming and reacts accordingly. Behaviorally, what this means is that we are still giving into a craving for sweets - and while diet sodas don't bring the calories, they continue to facilitate the inclusion of sweet things in our diet - and many times that means slipping back to sweet and sugary snacks.  The behavioral key is to figure out what that craving for sweets is all about - and try to pull it up by the roots instead of just quieting it with "sugar-lite."  Take a minute and determine what it means to "want sweets" and the role they serve - once that gets figured out, you may not use the substitutes as often.

Diet sodas may seem harmless since they are calorie free, but studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center- San Antonio, have indicated that diet soda drinkers are actually 41% more likely to be overweight for every can of diet soda they consume each day!  Since these beverages are calorie free, many individuals are rightly confused as to how they can lead to obesity and metabolic syndrome (the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes).

Studies at Purdue University in 2008 showed that rats who consumed diets containing the artificial sweetener saccharin gained more weight than the group of rats who were fed a sugary diet.  This is due to a physiological connection between the sweet taste and overeating.  Diet sodas (and any food containing artificial sweeteners) trick the body into thinking that it is consuming a sugary food.  This causes a spike in insulin, which decreases the body’s ability to burn fat effectively.  The increase in insulin causes an increase in storage of fat.  After the body takes glucose that is in the bloodstream, the person feels lethargic and tends to overeat.  This is where the weight gain is seen.  People who consume artificial sweeteners also develop a preference for sweet foods, overall leading to an increase in caloric consumption from foods like cookies, cakes, and sugary cereals.

People who consume diet drinks also tend to use it as an excuse to eat unhealthy in other areas.  For example, they might get that double cheeseburger and think it’s ok to get the fries since they’re having a DIET cola.  This is applicable to any other diet beverage such as fruit-flavored beverages, diet teas, etc.

So what can you do if you are “addicted” to your diet drink?  Here are some tips to help you decrease your consumption of diet drinks:

Every time you have a diet drink, you should have an equal amount of water with it.Cut your consumption in half each week. (If you have 8 diet sodas a day, cut it down to 4 a day the first week, 2 a day the second week, 1 a day the third week, and then maybe NONE the fourth!)Make sure you are getting enough sleep so you don’t turn to your caffeinated diet drinks for energy.Stop buying these drinks at the grocery store! If they’re not in your house, you won’t be as tempted!Choose tea or water at restaurants over sodas.

What you drink can contribute a lot of calories. It is easy for some people to drink 1000 calories a day. Diet sodas have no calories so can be a part of weight reduction. However, it seems that drinking a diet soda on an empty stomach will slightly raise insulin levels causing you to want food to counteract the insulin. Water and selzer with a little juice are better choices to quench thirst. For those on medications that dry out the mouth, choose water. It is the least expensive and best choice.  

In a landmark analysis, Dr. Matthias B. Schulze of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues examined the relationships between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and weight gain and diabetes risk in women. What they found was not surprising. Weight gain was highest among women who increased their sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption from one or fewer drinks per week to one or more drinks per day This change resulted in an average weight gain of nearly 2lh pounds per year or about 10 pounds over a four-year period. In addition, women consuming one or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day had an 83-percent increased risk for type 2 diabetes compared with those who consumed less than one of these beverages per month.

So you might think that the answer is to switch to diet sodas, right? Unfortunately it's not that simple. Research at the University of Texas actually showed that in an eight-year study 55 percent of those subjects who drank 12 to 24 ounces of diet sodas daily became overweight - about twice as many as those consuming regular soft drinks with HFCS. In other words, diet soda consumption is twice as likely to lead to obesity as consuming soft drinks sweetened with HFCS. Why? Because it appears the diet drinks confuse the appetite control centers to trigger hunger rather than promote satiety