Dangers of Drinking Diet Pop/Soda

[Edwin]

I read an article on Yahoo Health from Prevention that has some alarming information about the harmful effects of drinking diet pop/soda. Many people think that they are losing weight faster by drinking diet pop/soda. Many people who have diabetes think that they are better off by drinking diet pop/soda. I found some information in this article from studies conducted that tells a different story:


7 Side Effects of Drinking Diet Soda
Mandy Oaklander
Friday, September 14, 2012
From Prevention
Pop quiz! What's the single biggest source of calories for Americans? White bread? Big Macs? Actually, try soda. The average American drinks about two cans of the stuff every day. "But I drink diet soda," you say. "With no calories or sugar, it's the perfect alternative for weight watchers...Right?"
Not so fast. Before you pop the top off the caramel-colored bubbly, know this: guzzling diet soda comes with its own set of side effects that may harm your health--from kickstarting kidney problems to adding inches to your waistline.
Unfortunately, diet soda is more in vogue than ever. Kids consume the stuff at more than double the rate of last decade, according to research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Among adults, consumption has grown almost 25%.
But knowing these 7 side effects of drinking diet soda may help you kick the can for good.
Here's something you didn't know about your diet soda: It might be bad for your kidneys. In an 11-year-long Harvard Medical School study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found that diet cola is associated with a two-fold increased risk for kidney decline. Kidney function started declining when women drank more than two sodas a day. Even more interesting: Since kidney decline was not associated with sugar-sweetened sodas, researchers suspect that the diet sweeteners are responsible.
According to a 2008 University of Minnesota study of almost 10,000 adults, even just one diet soda a day is linked to a 34% higher risk of metabolic syndrome, the group of symptoms including belly fat and high cholesterol that puts you at risk for heart disease. Whether that link is attributed to an ingredient in diet soda or the drinkers' eating habits is unclear. But is that one can really worth it?
You read that right: Diet soda doesn't help you lose weight after all. A University of Texas Health Science Center study found that the more diet sodas a person drank, the greater their risk of becoming overweight. Downing just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500%. Why? Artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body's natural ability to regulate calorie intake based on the sweetness of foods, suggested an animal study from Purdue University. That means people who consume diet foods might be more likely to overeat, because your body is being tricked into thinking it's eating sugar, and you crave more.
Your first bad decision was ordering that Vodka Diet--and you may make the next one sooner than you thought. Cocktails made with diet soda get you drunker, faster, according to a study out of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia. That's because sugar-free mixers allow liquor to enter your bloodstream much quicker than those with sugar, leaving you with a bigger buzz.
Diet sodas contain something many regular sodas don't: mold inhibitors. They go by the names sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, and they're in nearly all diet sodas. But many regular sodas, such as Coke and Pepsi, don't contain this preservative.
That's bad news for diet drinkers. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it - they knock it out altogether," Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told a British newspaper in 1999. The preservative has also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Since then, some companies have phased out sodium benzoate. Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have replaced it with another preservative, potassium benzoate. Both sodium and potassium benzoate were classified by the Food Commission in the UK as mild irritants to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes.
With a pH of 3.2, diet soda is very acidic. (As a point of reference, the pH of battery acid is 1. Water is 7.) The acid is what readily dissolves enamel, and just because a soda is diet doesn't make it acid-light. Adults who drink three or more sodas a day have worse dental health, says a University of Michigan analysis of dental checkup data. Soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.
Sometimes, the vessel for your beverage is just as harmful. Diet or not, soft drink cans are coated with the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), which has been linked to everything from heart disease to obesity to reproductive problems. That's a lot of risktaking for one can of pop.

[m&m]

Base on my experience, when I use to drink soda or any soft drinks, I got a problem during my monthly period. I do not know why but it is really a big problem to me.

While there are lots of women suffer during period, they tend to take medicine or pain reliever to relieve from pain.

That is why when I got my pain, I drink mefinamic capsule or any pain reliever.

How is your experience, girls? Do you stay in bed for a long time?

Those who drink a lot of soda, they become big and sometimes got diabetic. Better drink water anyway.

[Edwin]

M&M, we have a good friend from where we used to live for ten years that scolds Carol every time she sees her for drinking diet cola. She tells her, "See, Carol, you drink that diet pop, and then you can think and you can't remember!" Then she laughs hard. She is being funny with us, but the sad part is that it is really true. I remind her every chance I get, but it does no good, because she thinks that drinking diet pop is harmless, and little does she know that is not true because it is very harmful!

[Smiley]

So true. . . . That crap can kill you.Regular pop has the equivalent of between 6 and 14 teaspoons of sugar per can! The diet stuff has no sugar but the chemical soup that makes you think it is sweet really causes havoc within your body.
I used to drink 6-8 cans a day when I was with the railway,I always had a case in my service truck with me.Now,here it is Sept and I really doubt that I have had 8 cans so far this year!I don`t miss it,I`m healthier and slimmer too!

[Smiley]

BTW; M&M, Your post shows that you are a person who forms opinion as a result of personal experience and observation,rather than popular opinion and social trend.The world needs more like you.

[Edwin]

Yes, M&M knows from exerience, and she was smart enough to let it teach her a lesson. She also saw what it did to some other people that she observed! I was never a pop drinker. I remember when we were traveling we got a pop about once a year during the summer, and Mom and Dad, thought, "well, they had their treat, now that is enough, and that is all we got. And not every summer did we get a pop, but maybe only a couple of them. I probably drank 12 cans of pop all total by the time I graduated from high school. I really didn't care about it either. I was a milk, orange juice, lemonade, and coffee drinker. The place where we lived and worked for 10 years we got a pop every day for free with our meal. Free; by the time my teeth started going bad those cans of pop cost me about 10 thousand dollars to get my teeth fixed. Well, probably not all the pop's fault, but the pop finished my teeth off, so I had no choice but to get them worked on. The last year we worked there my employer took my free pop away from me, and that is the best thing he ever did for me. I drank milk from that time on instead of pop! That was about 5 years ago now, and I have drank very little of the stuff since then!

[crisipicada]

BTW; M&M, Your post shows that you are a person who forms opinion as a result of personal experience and observation,rather than popular opinion and social trend.The world needs more like you.

I appreciate your words of observation, Smiley! I do not realize the world needs me. I am taking refresh, a food supplement of powder from the product of Nutritional Immunology, Science that deals with the relationship of your body and the food that you eat.

It is a very good food supplement and it is consider as food and not medicine or drug, therefore there is no side effect on it. It lowers the glucose level, too that is why I am not diabetic. Thanks to God. As much as glucose level is concern, it lowers blood pressure too because it cleanses the artery and that makes the blood floor smoothly.

Please search about Nutritional Immunology over the internet and you will be amazed how vegetables and fruits and it wonders cure our diseases.

[Edwin]

Crisi, that is great that you are taking food supplement that is not medication, and that is working to help your body, lower glucose, lower your blood pressure, and cleanse your arteries! I do the same, but I use peanutbutter, honey, and milk. The peanut oil is good for your arteries also, and the milk is helpful, as well as the honey, as long as you don't eat honey in excess, it does great things for the body. I have been eating chocolate on a regular basis here lately, and it doesn wonderful things for the body also. I am finding that I love the dark slightly sweetened chocolate even better than that with almonds in it. I did eat one sqaure of unsweetened baker's chocolate today with almonds, and my youngest daughter has a fit when she hears me talk about eating that. "How can you eat that stuff," Dad, she says, but its good for the body. that is great Crisi, that you have something that is good food, not drugs, and can help your body!

[crisipicada]

Also I learned that drinking soda will soften your bones and that is why many got bone fracture.

I limit drinking soda now adays. While my officemates would like to invite us to drink, then that is the time i can have a glass of coke or any soft drinks they offer.

[Edwin]

This is the same with me. Our youngest daughter and her daughter drink far too much soda. They keep rootbeer for me, and when I come they give me some rootbeer, so that it is a treat, rather than me drinking can after can, day after day, so then because I don't drink it often it probably doesn't harm me. You are right about sodas softening your bones, pulling calcium out of them, and that does make them weak and suseptable to fractures. They say what ever you do, do it in moderation, and that is so important with soda; don't drink very many of them!