Truth Behind Diet Sodas

Many of us prefer diet soda instead of regular soda drinks, so we can enjoy a sweet bubble drink without consuming excessive calories. However several studies have found that diet sodas are bad as the regular ones. Studies have also shown that consuming too much diet soda can cause serious health problems like diabetes, stroke and other heart diseases. Soda brands claim that diet soda contains little to no sugar but this is not true, diet sodas contain artificial sweeteners to achieve the sweet taste that is even more harmful for your health. Diet sodas usually contain artificial coloring such as caramel color and additives like phosphoric acid. Some of these elements may have negative impact on your health when consumed in large amounts. For example, caramel coloring is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a possibly carcinogenic element for human beings. Not all caramel coloring has the same potential health risk, depending on how it was produced, but the batches containing a compound called 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MEI, seem to instil the greatest risk.

Some researches show that those who drink diet soda have higher brain activity associated with the desire to consume foods high in fats and sugar. So those who drink diet sodas seem to change the brain’s sweet-sensing reward center. This leads to change how the brain reacts for high-calorie food cravings. Experts always recommend that kicking soda all the way out of your diet can have a huge positive effect on both your weight and your health. Quitting a habit is not so easy But knowing these 7 major side effects of consuming diet soda may help you kick the can for good.

Kidney Problems

Here’s something no one ever told about your diet soda- It might be bad for your kidneys. In an 11-year-long Medical School study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found that diet soda is associated with a two-fold increased risk for kidney failure. Kidney functions started dropping when women drank more than two diet sodas a day. Most importantly it was discovered that kidney failure was not associated with sugar-sweetened soda, but artificial sweeteners found in diet soda were directly linked to kidney failure.

Messed-Up Metabolism

According to a study of almost 10,000 adults, consuming just one diet soda a day is linked to a 34 percent higher risk of metabolic disorder. The group of symptoms including belly fat, lower abdominal pain, bloating and high cholesterol that puts you at risk for heart disease were witnessed after the researches. However studies are yet to conclude whether the link is attributed to a specific ingredient present in diet soda, or the soda itself.

Obesity

You read that right-  Diet sodas do not help you lose weight after all. A University of Texas Health Science Center study found that the more diet sodas a person drink, the greater is the risk of becoming overweight. Consuming just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500 percent, because artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body’s natural ability to regulate calories intake based on the sweet foods. That means people who consume diet sodas might be more likely to overeat, because their body is being tricked into thinking it’s eating sugar, and they can end up to crave more. Some studies have also shown that caffeine which is present in some of the diet sodas could also cause headaches.

Decreased bone density

Like you read earlier that diet sodas make you crave more sugary foods, that can end up causing an adverse effect on your bone health. Diet soda itself contains several elements that may negatively affect your bone health and lead to bone loss. It is important to know that diet soda doesn’t necessarily instil a major risk of bone fracture or reduced bone mineral density compared with regular soda. Both can increase your risk if you consume them in large amounts.

Rotting Teeth

We all know that bones and teeth are always linked somehow, anything that is important for bones is also important for your teeth.  With a pH of 3.2, diet sodas are considered very acidic. The acid is something that could damage the surface of the enamel very easily, increasing erosion and just because a soda is diet doesn’t make it less acidic. Adults who drink two or more sodas a day have worse dental health. Studies have shown that regular soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.