 Why could fizzy drinks without sugar increase your waistline? Diet coke, sprite zero, pepsi lite or powerade don’t contain sugar, but still researchers claim they increase your waistline. Why would it do so since it doesn’t contain sugar? While the exact mechanisms are unknown, scientists believe that artificial sweeteners stimulate the appetite and increases cravings for carbs. The sweet taste of a diet coke triggers the same mechanism that if you drink a sugary drink. Your body may get confused and releases too much insulin which may lead to overeating. This may even lead to Type 2 diabetes claims a study published in “Nature” in 2014. Science: There are a myriad of studies done to the topic and not all come to the same conclusion. Most studies find a correlation between weight gain and the consumption of diet soda. Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for example followed 474 diet soda drinkers for nearly 10 years. They found that the waists of the diet soda drinkers grew 70 percent more than the waists of non-diet soda drinkers. And worse: those who drank two or more diet sodas a day had a 500 percent greater increase in waist size! However, the correlation of drinking diet sodas and getting fatter does not mean causation. A study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health came to a similar conclusion. There are other For example, the meta-analysis, published in the “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” reviewed 15 clinical trials and nine cohort studies. The outcome was that artificially sweetened drinks did not lead to increased weight and the clinical studies resulted in a modest weight loss. Why not give it a try and skip fizzy drinks altogether? In the end it is a matter whom you believe, but to find out what works for you, you can only try it yourself: simply leave the diet drinks alone for some weeks (but don’t replace them with the sugary version!) and see what happens to your body. How do you feel? Are the pants getting loser? Do you crave your fizzy dink? Do you crave more or less sugar? In the end it’s about your body no matter what scientific studies tell, but without trying you can’t know. You will definitively do something for your health, since all fizzy drinks contain questionable ingredients. Most health advocates suggest drinking plain water. For me, water doesn’t do the trick on a sweaty day. I like my homemade kombucha, which I let fully ferment fully to avoid that extra sugar, diluted with water. If it has to be plain water, I throw some herbs like mint, scented geraniums or pineapple sage in the water jug to give some scent and flavour. I would be very pleased, if you share your experiences, trying to ditch diet sodas (or about any comment on fizzy drinks)! more: usrtk.org/sweeteners/aspartame-weight-gain/ www.consumerreports.org/soda/mounting-evidence-against-diet-sodas/ www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/do-diet-drinks-really-make-you-fatter/#where-did-the-story-come-from By: Nicola Bludau
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