![]() Things That Happen When You Finally Stop Drinking Diet Soda. Hiroshi Noguchi/Getty Images. You've decided to give up diet soda—good idea! Maybe you weren't hitting your weight loss goals or couldn't stomach that long list of ingredients anymore. Or perhaps you heard one too many times that it's just not good for you. Research on diet soda is still in its infancy, but there's enough out there to identify what you can look forward to when you put down the can and cool down with an unsweetened iced tea instead. Gary John Norman/Getty Images. ![]() It turns out the headaches you expected from a diet soda withdrawal didn't materialize. And now that you've quit the stuff, you probably find yourself thinking clearly for the first time in a while. Bubble trouble When taken at face value, diet soda seems like a health-conscious choice. It saves you the 140-plus calories you'd find in a sugary soft drink while. Soda (even diet soda) makes you fat. The artificial sweeteners contained in diet soda tricks your brain into increasing your cravings for more food and as you. Soda might be refreshing but it can seriously damage your health. Here's why you should avoid it all costs. That's because the chemicals that make up the artificial sweetener aspartame may have altered brain chemicals, nerve signals, and the brain's reward system, which leads to headaches, anxiety, and insomnia, according to a review in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And a 2. 01. 3 animal study found that rats that drank diet soda had damaged cells and nerve endings in the cerebellum—the part of the brain responsible for motor skills. Radu Bercan/Shutterstock. It's not your imagination: Without your usual diet soda chaser, you may find that food has more flavor. It has subtlety. It's more enjoyable. That's because the artificial sweeteners in your diet soda overwhelmed your taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness. ![]() Aspartame ranks 2. Splenda (also known as sucralose)? In fact, brain scans show that diet soda alters sweet receptors in the brain and prolongs sugar cravings rather than satisfies them. And, when they try diet soda again, they find it intolerably sweet. A recent 9- year study found older adults who drank diet soda continued to pack on belly fat. The study piggybacks on research that found each daily diet soda increases your chance of becoming obese in the next decade by 6. Diabetes Care that found drinking diet soft drinks daily was associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome—obesity, high blood- pressure, high triglycerides—which leads to heart disease and diabetes. Tefi/Shutterstock. ![]() Putting down the soda may be the best way to improve your bone strength and reduce your risk of fractures. One 2. 01. 4 study found that each daily soda increased the chance of hip fracture by 1. And another found that older women who drank cola had lower bone mineral density in their hips. The jury is still out on why soda has this effect, but the science pretty clearly suggests that a soda habit weakens your bones. Layla Dartry / Eye. Em/Getty Images. Since diet sodas have no calories, people drinking them often feel it's okay to indulge elsewhere, finds Bainbridge. Often she sees her diet soda–drinking patients make poor food choices, like a burger and fries, a piece of cake, or potato chips, because they think they can afford those extra calories. Plus, soda often accompanies unhealthy foods. When you eliminate the soft drink, you also break the junk food habit. When you mix it with alcohol, your stomach empties out faster than if you used regular soda, causing a drastic increase in blood alcohol concentrations, according to an Australian study in the American Journal of Medicine. And when you add caffeine, look out. Another study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research found that bar patrons who mixed drinks with diet colas were intoxicated much more easily and frequently. Club soda, which is naturally sugar- and calorie- free. Getty Images. Our hormones may explain the great paradox of why people gain weight when they switch to diet soda. A study in Diabetes Care found that drinking two- thirds of a diet soda before eating primed the pancreas to release a lot of the fat- storing hormone insulin. When the pancreas is overworked from creating insulin to control blood sugar levels, diabetes rears its ugly head. And a recent study in Japan found that middle- aged men who drank 1 or more diet sodas daily were much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes over a 7- year period. Roger Harris/Getty Images. Now that your body no longer has to make sense of the unpronounceable ingredients in diet soda, your kidneys can get back to clearing toxins, stabilizing blood pressure, and absorbing minerals. One study looked at 1. ![]() Does Drinking Diet Soda Increase Your Blood Sugar? But you might not be aware that diet soda may also have an effect on your blood sugar levels, although research in this area isn't conclusive. Immediate Effects. Drinking diet soda by itself isn't likely to cause spikes in your blood sugar levels. A study published in . When consumed along with carbohydrates in the form of glucose, however, the diet soda did increase the amount of a substance called GLP- 1 in the blood that may delay stomach emptying and minimize the effect of the carbohydrates on after- meal blood sugar levels, although more research is needed to verify this effect. Fasting Blood Sugar. Consuming diet soda at least once a day was associated with an increased fasting blood sugar level and a higher waist circumference compared to not consuming any soda, according to a study published in . This translated to a 6. Another study, published in the . In addition, the study indicated that drinking diet soda sometimes, but not always, increased the risk for metabolic syndrome somewhat even when following the healthier diet. A1. C Levels. The A1. C test is an indicator of how well a person has managed her blood sugar levels over the past three months. The higher the score, the higher the person's average blood sugar levels have been. A study published in . The study, however, noted that these results could be due to other confounding factors, such as a high fat intake, a low fiber intake or a high body mass index. This means the higher A1. C scores could be due to people who consumed diet beverages tending to make other unhealthy dietary choices and not necessarily due to the diet beverages themselves. Other Considerations. Diet soda may also cause you to crave sweeter foods and lessen your taste for healthier but less sweet foods like fruits and vegetables, as well as causing issues with the mechanisms your body uses to determine whether you are hungry or full. This could potentially increase your chances of gaining weight, notes an article published in the.
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