Many health-conscious people drink diet sodas to limit their calorie and sugar intake. Artificial sweeteners in diet sodas include aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K, all of which are FDA approved. Rumors circulate nonetheless, blaming diet soda for a variety of physical ailments, ranging from cancer to osteoporosis. Research confirms that, while most ingredients are harmless, certain diet soda ingredients do carry risks when consumed in large amounts by at-risk people.
Weight Gain
In a study published in the July 2004 issue of the "Journal of Obesity and Other Metabolic Disorders, " Purdue University researchers found that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners may lead to overeating. The scientists fed one group of lab rats an artificially-sweetened beverage, while a second group received a regular sweetened beverage. When the researchers then presented both groups with a sugary snack, the artificial sweetener group consumed more total calories. They theorized that exposure to artificial sweeteners reduced the rats' ability to perceive how many calories they were consuming. A 2005 study at the Texas Health Science Center corroborated the data, showing that each daily diet soda was associated with a 41% higher risk of becoming overweight in the following seven to eight years.
Cancer
The 2006 NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study studied the dietary habits of half a million people and showed no link between even the highest levels of daily aspartame consumption and cancer in humans. The FDA has set the acceptable daily intake, or ADI, for aspartame at 50 mg per kg of body weight, which translates to 3750 mg per day for an average adult. This is the equivalent of a whopping 21 cans of diet soda. Under this level of intake, there is no evidence of increased cancer risk.
Bone Loss
Diet sodas contain phosphoric acid, which increases the acidity of the blood. Tufts University scientist Katherine Tucker and colleagues conducted a study, published in the October 2006 "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition", showing that an intake of three soft drinks per week was associated with increased bone loss in women, with an even more pronounced effect when one diet soda per day was consumed by study subjects. Tucker theorized that the body compensates for increased blood acidity by leaching calcium from the bones.
Phenyketonuria
Phenylketonuria, or PKU, is a genetic metabolic disorder that prevents sufferers from processing the amino acid phenylalanine. Routine metabolic screening in newborns detects this disorder during infancy, so that a low-phenylalanine diet can be initiated before the nervous system is damaged. People with PKU must follow a strict diet, limiting high-protein foods. Aspartame must also be avoided, because phenylalanine is a byproduct of its metabolism. Continued ingestion of high-risk foods such as diet sodas can cause mental retardation in children with PKU, so diet soda must be avoided unless it is sweetened with an alternative to aspartame.
References
- Medlineplus: Sweeteners
- Mayo Clinic.com: Phenylketonuria
- National Cancer Institute: Aspartame and Cancer
- "Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders"; A Pavlovian Approach to the Problem of Obesity; Terry Davidson, et al; July 2004
- Newsweek.com: By the Numbers: The Truth Behind Those Scary Diet Soda Myths
- "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Colas, But Not Other Carbonated Beverages, are Associated with Low Bone Density in Women; Katherine Tucker, et al; October 2006
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