Dieters often turn to diet sodas to satisfy their sweet tooth, especially since the beverage contains no calories but boasts all the carbonation and most of the flavor of their full-sugar, high-calorie counterparts. Health gurus say dumping regular soda is a must for a healthy lifestyle, but are you trading one health hazard for another when making the switch to diet? Most doctors agree that diet soda is a much better alternative, though there are some correlations to certain health problems that will require future research to fully understand.
Premature Birth
Danish scientists conducted a study in 2010 that showed women who drank at least one diet soda each day were 38 percent more likely to deliver preterm babies. Women who drank four or more servings per day were 80 percent more likely to deliver preterm babies. Dr. Thorhallur I. Halldorsson of the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, who participated in the study, said pregnant diet soda drinkers should not necessarily be alarmed, as the findings are still in the early stage and require more testing. These tests will include those on the long-term effects of regular use of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, which he said can break down to toxic substances in the body.
Metabolic Disease and Type 2 Diabetes
Metabolic disease is a group of conditions including high waist size, high resting glucose levels, high blood pressure and low good cholesterol. It indicates your risk for diabetes, heart disease and stroke. In 2009, a group of researchers at the University of Texas Health Sciences in Houston published a study that said daily consumption of diet soda increased the chance of metabolic disease by 36 percent and the chance of Type 2 diabetes by 67 percent. Though researchers noted their data was observational in nature and needs further testing, the association was significant.
Weight Gain
Weight gain while drinking diet soda is more of a psychological risk than a biological one. Though some research claims artificial sweeteners can sabotage a healthy lifestyle because they do nothing to decrease your craving for sugary snacks, Dr. Howard Eisenson, executive director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, advises that the evidence is limited and conflicting, and that what may be responsible is the psychological effect connected to drinking diet sodas. Some people who drink diet sodas knowing they contain no calories will make up those calories in other areas, at times to excess. If you drink a diet soda at a meal, only to use your choice to justify ordering a full-fat dessert, you are likely taking in more calories than you think. Eating more calories than your body uses as fuel will always result in weight gain.
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