All us geeks do it - sitting at the computer sucking back drinks that keep us awake. For some it is coffee. For others it is Dr Pepper. But a lot of us have also developed a love affair with diet drinks like Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr Pepper or any one of the millions of diet sodas out there. The reason was that we needed the kick to keep us awake at the desk, but we didn’t want to get a fat ass. But for some reason, the weight just kept piling on.

The truth about these so called, “healthy alternatives” might be a bit of a shock.

Background

Almost every diet soda on the market is sweetened by one of four artificial sweeteners. Sucralose, Saccharin, Aspartame,or Acesulfame Potassium.

Of those, Suclarose (which holds a 62% share of the artificial sweeteners market) is probably the worst thing for your health. It is a chemically produced by product of actual sugar using chlorine in that process! And even though the nutritional facts state that Suclarose has zero calories per teaspoon, in reality it has two calories per teaspoon - a legal loophole in the FDA’s regulations which allows such labeling on “food [that] contains less than 5 calories per reference amount customarily consumed and per labeled serving.” The fact that there have been no long-term studies on the effects of Suclarose on humans should also be cause for concern.

A few other choice facts about Suclarose:

1. Sucralose is an artificial substance, some of which is absorbed by the body
2. Pre-approval tests indicated a potential for toxicity
3. Sucralose is a chlorinated compound (a chlorocarbon)
4. Independent, controlled human studies had not been performed
5. Long-term human studies with sucralose had not been performed

The other artificial sweeteners aren’t much better - potential problems include possible links to cancer, headaches, stomach problems and development problems in the unborn.

So Can Diet Colas Help You Lose Weight?

Well if you aren’t scared off diet cola by now, let’s take a look at the weight loss properties of the drinks, which after all are the reason we buy them in the first place.

Let’s start with the fact that there isn’t a single published study that concludes that drinking diet colas will cause you to lose weight. One University of Texas Health Science Center study even correlated drinking diet colas with an increase in weight! According to WebMD Medical News, the study reported the risk of obesity soaring by 41% with each can of diet softdrink consumed per day.

“What didn’t surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity, [but] what was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher,” according to the author of that study.

The real kicker for anyone who is trying to be health-conscious is that these artificial sweeteners used in diet colas actually produce a craving for sweets and carbohydrates. While you might be saving some calories in the actual drink choice, the longer term effect is that you will want to eat more junk, which will put you in a worse position than when you started. “Empty calories” as provided by diet colas will simply stimulate your appetite as there are few to no nutrients taken from the drink. In effect, the diet drinks are sabotaging your weight loss efforts.

In the end there really is no “easy” way to ditch the pounds. It takes discipline in your eating habits and hitting the gym a few times a week for a cardio or weights session (hell, just a couple of walks are a damn good start).

The bad news, fellow geeks, is that diet colas no longer have a place at our computer table!

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