Do you prefer drinking “diet” Coke or regular Coke?
Nowadays, we have all sorts of products with an option of ‘diet’, ‘zero’, ‘sugar free’ or ‘light’. As the trend of the grocery market is focusing on “well-being”, more people are starting to choose healthier and non-fattening foods. But let’s think about it, Coke Zero literally has zero calories (cal) but it tastes almost the same as the regular coke with 154 cal. Well, how could this be possible when zero products taste similar or the same in sweetness but have absolutely zero calories? Are they really a better option for our health and weight?
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In diet soda, artificial sweeteners are added instead of natural sugars. Thus, diet drinks could be a better option if you want to prevent bacteria growing in your mouth due to natural sugars. Inside our mouth, plaque resides on our teeth and propagate in presence of sugar. Since diet soda has sugar that is artificial, it will not affect the growth of plaque. However, according to D. Aune, the artificial sweetener, aspartame, increases the risk of higher chances of getting cancers including lymphomas and leukemias and type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or metabolic syndrome with diet soft drinks.
Moreover, Medical Daily explains how diet products, in fact, contribute to weight gain because when human bodies crave for natural sugars, these diet products do not suffice the same way as natural sugar but rather confuse our bodies and trigger insulin, which signals our body to store more fat. Thus, the higher chance to eat in addition to the drink could eventually cause weight gain.
Lastly, according to the research done by D.A. Booth, there is no significant weight change between a person who drinks regular products and person who drinks diet products. He also noted the only effective set of the only dietary strategies effective at reducing weight are increased exercise and the reduction in consumption of fats.
As a regular soda drinker, I believe there is no significant difference drinking diet sodas especially for weight loss purpose. If you still choose to drink diet drinks, you should not expect it to be like water. Rather, your decision between diet and regular drinks should simply be choosing between natural and artificial sweetener regardless of calories because the only best way to loose weight and be healthy we know for sure is a healthy diet of balanced nutrition with constant exercise.
Here is a YouTube video discussing about dangers of diet soda by Dr. Group and Global Healing Center
Sung Eun Kim
