The Truth About Diet Sodas and Why They Don’t Work

How Artificial Sweeteners Change Your Body Chemistry (And Make Your Fatter)

Artificial sweeteners in diet soda raise your insulin levels just as much as real sugar. Without getting too technical, high insulin levels essentially mean your body stops burning fat and starts storing more of it. So even though your diet soda is lower in calories, it has the exact same effect on your body’s natural fat-storing mechanisms as a normal soda.

Dr Isabella Tausz, an expert on anti-aging medicine and hormones based in Dubai, has summarized the problems caused by diet sodas: “In diet soda, the sugar is replaced with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame which induce adverse physiological reactions and hormonal responses that can stimulate appetite and increase carbohydrate cravings, leading to weight gain. Several studies, including one published by the American Heart Association, have shown a correlation between diet soft drink consumption and obesity or factors that lead to obesity.”

This has even more serious implications than out of control weight gain. Raised insulin levels are known to lead to type 2 diabetes, a serious condition which requires careful monitoring and can be life threatening.

How Artificial Sweeteners Throw Your Metabolism Off Balance

We’ve all seem people who seem to drop (or never gain) weight with effortless ease. It’s easy to complain that you’re cursed with a ‘bad metabolism,’ but the fact is you actually have a lot of control over how efficiently your metabolism functions.

The bad news is, diet sodas have a terrible effect on the liver. Most diet sodas contain a bunch of unnatural chemicals which need to be processed and removed from your system – a job which also falls to the liver. When your liver is busy handling toxins and chemicals, it’s less effective at burning up body fat.

What to Do?

Learning the truth about diet soda can be quite a shock at first, especially if you’ve spent years putting up with a worse-tasting drink because you thought you were doing the right thing for your body. The reality is, if you’re going to drink diet soda you may as well drink a normal, high-sugar soda – the health effects of the diet version will be about the same, if not worse. In Dr Tausz’s words, “It is imperative to kick the habit, replacing it with healthy, safe alternatives like pure water, flavored with fresh lemon for taste, and herbal teas without sugar.”

If you’re serious about cutting body fat and keeping it off, the only smart choice is to cut out soda from your diet altogether (both regular and diet versions) or save it for an occasional ‘cheat meal.’

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