While hardly an ideal beverage, compared to classic Coca-Cola, Diet Coke is a better alternative. Diet Coke has no calories, sugar or carbohydrates. Comparatively, a 12-oz. container of regular Coke has 140 calories, 39 g of sugar or 39 g of carbohydrates. Still, Diet Coke contains ingredients that can cause many bad side effects, especially when consumed in large quantities.
Caffeine Effects
You may drink Diet Coke for the energy boost provided by the caffeine content, but caffeine has negative effects as well. A 12 oz.-can of Diet Coke contains 47 mg of caffeine. Too much caffeine can cause shaking, dizziness, headaches, anxiety, abnormal heart rhythms and interfere with sleep. Caffeine can interfere with medications and supplements, including ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, theophylline and echinacea.
Caffeine affects every individual differently. Generally, the larger a person, the less sensitive he will be to caffeine. If you regularly drink Diet Coke and other caffeinated beverages, you might build up a tolerance to it so that it takes more and more caffeine to give you the desired boost. On the flip side, if you regularly drink caffeine and then stop, you may experience headaches from withdrawal.
Hydration Effects
Diet Coke is not a good way to quench your thirst. It is empty of nutritional value and because of the caffeine, may actually cause dehydration. Caffeine is a diuretic, meaning it makes you urinate. The more Diet Coke you drink, the more likely you will need to urinate, emptying the body of needed water. Dehydration can cause dizziness, headaches, speeding heart, seizures, and in extreme cases, death.
Calcium Effects
You need calcium for growth and maintenance of strong bones and teeth, and Diet Coke may interfere with your calcium levels because it is high in phosphate. Drinking too much Diet Coke adds large amounts of phosphate into the blood stream, which then empties calcium from your bones. Drinking Diet Coke daily may increase your chance of fracture from a fall by three to four times, cites the American College of Sports Medicine. Additionally, too little calcium can cause osteoporosis.
Additional Effects
Two popular myths surround Diet Coke: that it helps you lose weight and that the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke can cause cancer. Even though you're cutting out calories when you switch from Coke to Diet Coke, research suggests that drinking more than one diet soda a day still increases your risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, warns nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky on MayoClinic.com. As for aspartame, the artificial sweetener, it does not cause cancer or other adverse effects, although you should not drink Diet Coke if you have phenylketonuria because the aspartame contains phenylalanine.
References
- The Coca-Cola Compay Nutrition Connection: Diet Coke
- The Coca-Cola Compay Nutrition Connection: Coca-Cola
- MayoClinic.com; Caffeine Content for Coffee, Tea, Soda and More
- MayoClinic.com; Caffeine: How much is too much?; March 2011
- "ACSM Fit Society"; Diet Soda: Fewer Calories or More Health Risks?; Haley N. Kirby; Winter 2007
- MayoClinic.com; Diet Soda: Is it Bad for You?; Katherine Zeratsky; November 2009
