Zero Calories Soft Drinks Bad for You?

Do zero calorie soft drinks (and even stuff like ‘flavored water’) promote inflammation in the body or other deleterious health effects through their sugar substitutes?

Would this inflammation they might cause ‘undo’ the anti-inflammatory effects of any veggies, cod liver oil and/or tumeric you might be taking?

Obviously the best choice is water, but are zero calorie soft drinks and flavored water actually BAD for you in terms of inflammation…etc…

Thanks!!

my opinion on diet soft drinks is to enjoy them sparlingly, try to avoid drinking them on the regular if you can. If you are dieting i would reccoemnd throwing them in every now and again when you are really craving something.

Simply put, nothing is better than water. Period.

Water and black coffee are fine. That’s about it.

A can of coke zero every few days is fine. A large amount every day will mess your digestive system up.

The conclusion I’ve come to when discussing putting new chemicals or huge quantities of chemicals naturally occurring in the diet in your body, the truth is that we don’t know.

It is really not feasible to do proper controlled long term studies on individual chemicals, much less the vast number of chemicals found in different products, and EVEN less feasible to test them all in concert with all the other chemicals, and factors of lifestyle. It just isn?t going to happen.

So, people may say, a few diet cokes a day won’t hurt you. Truth is, nobody really knows. You can say it’s common and a lot of people do it, but cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, and other chronic conditions are common place too and they didn’t used to be.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
…the truth is that we don’t know.

So, people may say, a few diet cokes a day won’t hurt you. Truth is, nobody really knows. You can say it’s common and a lot of people do it, but cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, and other chronic conditions are common place too and they didn’t used to be.
[/quote]

Well Said.

[quote]SSC wrote:
Simply put, nothing is better than water. Period.[/quote]

List to this guy. He was a former fatty. And when I say Fatty I Mean FATTTY. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah but protein shakes, and 99% of supplements are full of sucralose, which is also an artificial chemical.

A long time ago, I asked Christian Thibaudeau this very question, and his conclusions were that, while they have zero calories, that can still raise insulin levels (not sure how). They can also make it hard to remove sugar cravings.

[quote]optheta wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:
Simply put, nothing is better than water. Period.[/quote]

List to this guy. He was a former fatty. And when I say Fatty I Mean FATTTY. :P[/quote]

Awww, <3

But yeah. I treat diet pop as more of a cheat than anything else, and usually only drink it when I AM cheating. As was mentioned, there’s just no way to know the true long-term benefits/risks of it, so why not just settle for the fluid that we know we need? :smiley:

I will say this-- Diet Coke with Splenda gives me the worst stomach cramps and shits of just about anything I’ve ever consumed.

And I use Splenda regularly as coffee/tea sweetner. I’ll get a Diet Coke or Coke Zero here and there, but everytime I’ve done the DC w/Splenda—> BAM! Nasty.

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I will say this-- Diet Coke with Splenda gives me the worst stomach cramps and shits of just about anything I’ve ever consumed.

And I use Splenda regularly as coffee/tea sweetner. I’ll get a Diet Coke or Coke Zero here and there, but everytime I’ve done the DC w/Splenda—> BAM! Nasty.[/quote]

Whoa, Diet Coke with added Splenda? Man I can’t even imagine. I have an okay sweet-tooth but that just sounds like overkill, haha.

[quote]SSC wrote:

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I will say this-- Diet Coke with Splenda gives me the worst stomach cramps and shits of just about anything I’ve ever consumed.

And I use Splenda regularly as coffee/tea sweetner. I’ll get a Diet Coke or Coke Zero here and there, but everytime I’ve done the DC w/Splenda—> BAM! Nasty.[/quote]

Whoa, Diet Coke with added Splenda? Man I can’t even imagine. I have an okay sweet-tooth but that just sounds like overkill, haha.[/quote]

No, it’s Spenda instead of aspartame as the sweetner.

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
A long time ago, I asked Christian Thibaudeau this very question, and his conclusions were that, while they have zero calories, that can still raise insulin levels (not sure how). They can also make it hard to remove sugar cravings.

[/quote]

I’ve heard this, too. I’m not sure how true it is, though.

Here’s my thinking on it:

If you raise insulin without sugar in your system, you’ll go hypoglycemic. Whether it’s just a little cold-sweat or a hypoglycemic coma, you’ll be hypo. So, if you wake up on an empty stomach and slam 3 cans of diet soda, you should get an insulin spike, and since you’re in a fasted state, you have no bloodsugar…

So if diet soda spikes insulin, but you can drink it on an empty stomach without going hypo… …does it really spike insulin?

In no way am I saying it can’t spike insulin, I’m just not too convinced unless I see some sort of mechanism by which it would :confused:

[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
I’ve heard this, too. I’m not sure how true it is, though.

Here’s my thinking on it:

If you raise insulin without sugar in your system, you’ll go hypoglycemic. Whether it’s just a little cold-sweat or a hypoglycemic coma, you’ll be hypo. So, if you wake up on an empty stomach and slam 3 cans of diet soda, you should get an insulin spike, and since you’re in a fasted state, you have no bloodsugar…

So if diet soda spikes insulin, but you can drink it on an empty stomach without going hypo… …does it really spike insulin?

In no way am I saying it can’t spike insulin, I’m just not too convinced unless I see some sort of mechanism by which it would :/[/quote]

Well, the human body does have safeguards in place to ensure proper blood sugar regulation. The issue(s) to consider would be whether or not a) “artificial sweeteners” actually DO modulate insulin secretion and b) whether or not an effect in insulin, if present, would be of pragmatic/clinical concern.

The mechanism by which it would work is, in theory, tied into the interaction of food products/analogues with “sweet taste receptors” located in either the mouth (resulting in something called cephalic-phase insulin secretion) or in the GI tract (resulting in release of glucagon-like peptide).

There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence to suggest that “artificial sweeteners” (as a class) have any real effect on insulin secretion, from what I’ve seen. They might augment a response to subsequent glucose exposure, but even if they do it would be to an extremely modest effect. When ingested on an empty stomach, I don’t believe that there is much compelling data to suggest that they do much of anything as far as that goes.

[quote]anonym wrote:

[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
I’ve heard this, too. I’m not sure how true it is, though.

Here’s my thinking on it:

If you raise insulin without sugar in your system, you’ll go hypoglycemic. Whether it’s just a little cold-sweat or a hypoglycemic coma, you’ll be hypo. So, if you wake up on an empty stomach and slam 3 cans of diet soda, you should get an insulin spike, and since you’re in a fasted state, you have no bloodsugar…

So if diet soda spikes insulin, but you can drink it on an empty stomach without going hypo… …does it really spike insulin?

In no way am I saying it can’t spike insulin, I’m just not too convinced unless I see some sort of mechanism by which it would :/[/quote]

Well, the human body does have safeguards in place to ensure proper blood sugar regulation. The issue(s) to consider would be whether or not a) “artificial sweeteners” actually DO modulate insulin secretion and b) whether or not an effect in insulin, if present, would be of pragmatic/clinical concern.

The mechanism by which it would work is, in theory, tied into the interaction of food products/analogues with “sweet taste receptors” located in either the mouth (resulting in something called cephalic-phase insulin secretion) or in the GI tract (resulting in release of glucagon-like peptide).

There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence to suggest that “artificial sweeteners” (as a class) have any real effect on insulin secretion, from what I’ve seen. They might augment a response to subsequent glucose exposure, but even if they do it would be to an extremely modest effect. When ingested on an empty stomach, I don’t believe that there is much compelling data to suggest that they do much of anything as far as that goes.[/quote]

Gotcha. Thanks!

There is some information on artificial sweeteners, and their ability to cause you to eat more…

A 2010 scientific review published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (YJBM)5 discussed the neurobiology of sweet cravings and the unexpected effect of artificial sweeteners on appetite control. It cites several large scale prospective cohort studies that found positive correlations between artificial sweetener use and weight gain, which flies in the face of “conventional wisdom” to cut calories in order to lose weight. For example:

"The San Antonio Heart Study6 examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption. Average BMI gain was +1.01 kg/m2 for control and 1.78 kg/m2 for people in the third quartile for artificially sweetened beverage consumption.

The American Cancer Society study7 conducted in early 1980s included 78,694 women who were highly homogenous with regard to age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and lack of preexisting conditions. At one-year follow-up, 2.7 percent to 7.1 percent more regular artificial sweetener users gained weight compared to non-users matched by initial weight... Saccharin use was also associated with eight-year weight gain in 31,940 women from the Nurses' Health Study8 conducted in the 1970s."

Experiments have found that sweet taste, regardless of its caloric content, enhances your appetite. Aspartame has been found to have the most pronounced effect, but the same applies for other artificial sweeteners, such as acesulfame potassium and saccharin.

The reason why glucose or sucrose (table sugar) tends to lead to lower food consumption compared to non-caloric artificial sweeteners is because the calories contained in natural sweeteners trigger biological responses to keep your overall energy consumption constant. This was again evidenced in a study9 published last year, which concluded that:

"The results support the hypothesis that consuming non-caloric sweeteners may promote excessive intake and body weight gain by weakening a predictive relationship between sweet taste and the caloric consequences of eating."

In essence, real sugar allows your body to accurately determine that it has received enough calories, thereby activating satiety signaling. Without the calories, your appetite is activated by the sweet taste, but as your body keeps waiting for the calories to come, sensations of hunger remain.

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
A long time ago, I asked Christian Thibaudeau this very question, and his conclusions were that, while they have zero calories, that can still raise insulin levels (not sure how). They can also make it hard to remove sugar cravings.

[/quote]

They raise insulin levels because of the sweet taste. It makes the body think that sugar has been ingested and the body increases insulin to do it’s job. Also it has been proven that it takes the body 72 hrs to process one 12oz dark soda and when drinking diet coke there is no nutritional value therefore it is worthless to our body. Calories are our fuel so if you want calorie free drink water. I would think that consistently putting these drinks in one’s body could lead to unwanted inflammatory response.

[quote]rich44 wrote:
They raise insulin levels because of the sweet taste. It makes the body think that sugar has been ingested and the body increases insulin to do it’s job. [/quote]

Quite sure this actually isn’t the case.

Hoping anonym will drop back in and comment.