If You Drink a Diet Coke:

If You Drink a Diet Coke: How does Drink a Diet Coke affect your body? Can drinking it actually contribute to weight gain? Should you even be drinking it at all?

When it comes to your health, it’s best to look beyond the surface and understand the true impact of diet drinks on your body.

By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of how Drink a Diet Coke can affect you, along with ideas for other healthy ways to stay hydrated throughout the day. Let’s get started!

Sugar content

Drinking diet sodas may increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease. One 12-ounce can of diet soda contains as much as 15 teaspoons of sugar.

A study published in Diabetes Care found that people who drink two or more cans of diet soda every day are three times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome (weight gain, high blood pressure and increased cholesterol levels) than those who don’t drink soda at all.

And another study published in The Journal of General Internal Medicine found that drinking one artificially sweetened beverage daily increases a person’s chances of developing type 2 diabetes by 33 percent.

Researchers believe these drinks negatively affect metabolism and may promote fat storage and weight gain; some research also suggests that drinking diet soda leads to overeating.

Nutritional value

Zero. Regular soda is bad enough, but diet soda seems even worse when you consider that it has no nutritional value and calories galore.

Researchers have linked diet drinks to metabolic syndrome—the combination of abdominal obesity (excessive fat around your midsection), high blood pressure, elevated fasting glucose levels and high triglycerides (fatty acids in your blood)—and heart disease.

In fact, researchers estimate that swapping regular soda for just one diet drink per day could add between two and 15 pounds to your waistline over time! If you want to keep off excess pounds and drop some weight safely, remember: Sugary sodas are best left behind.

Caffeine content

A 12-ounce can of regular soda contains about 35 milligrams of caffeine. That might not seem like much to you, but it’s enough to put your body into a mild state of alertness—even if you’re tired.

When people drink caffeinated beverages, their heart rate increases and they breathe more deeply. Ingesting caffeine also boosts blood pressure and releases insulin from your pancreas.

Meanwhile, insulin blocks lipolysis—the process by which fat is broken down for energy—which can lead to faster accumulation of fat around your waistline.

Anesthetic effect on fat cells

Many studies have shown that drinking diet soda has an effect on weight gain and fat mass. One study showed that rats given artificial sweeteners gained more weight than rats given sugar.

Another study showed that after five years of consuming artificial sweeteners, test subjects had larger waist circumference compared to people who did not consume artificial sweeteners.

This could be due to low calorie foods activating anesthetic receptors on fat cells called TAAR1 (taste-activated cation channel subfamily A member 1).

When these receptors are activated they create large amounts of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) causing increased lipogenesis and triglyceride synthesis which leads to more body fat formation.

How does aspartame affect your body?

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener marketed under such brand names as NutraSweet, Equal and Sugar Twin. Aspartame appears to be broken down into methanol, phenylalanine and aspartic acid (phenylalanine and aspartic acid are amino acids).

Phenylalanine breaks down into diketopiperazine or DKP which is known to form tumors. In addition to being an artificial sweetener, NutraSweet is also used in some pharmaceuticals.

This compound has been shown to cause neurological problems including memory loss and seizures. Aspartame should not be consumed by people with pre-existing health conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease.

Mentally addictive? Yes it is!

There is no scientific proof that artificial sweeteners are safe to use. There are a variety of artificial sweeteners out there and they can be dangerous to our health in many ways.

The chemicals used to create artificial sweeteners may lead to cancer or other diseases, so you may want to think twice before deciding on using them.

Start by avoiding aspartame or Aspartyl-phenylalanine-1-methyl ester. It is currently being used in more than 6,000 food items and beverages across America today.

Artificial sweeteners are bad for your health. Period.

They’re linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. And diet soda might even make you gain weight. Research presented at a meeting of endocrinologists suggests that consuming diet drinks actually raises your risk for obesity—but does it work both ways?

Should we all be switching back to regular if we want to lose weight? According to Susan Swithers, PhD, professor of behavioral neuroscience at Purdue University, yes.

She has some serious concerns about artificial sweeteners like sucralose (brand name Splenda), aspartame (Equal) and saccharin (Sweet’N Low). The evidence is pretty clear that they’re not biochemically inert, she says.

The diet soda health risks you must know

Drinking diet soda may seem like a harmless way to cut calories and lose weight. But nutrition experts warn there are some serious health risks associated with diet soda.

A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine concluded that people who drink diet soda daily have up to three times more risk of developing stroke or dementia compared to those who don’t drink it at all.

And earlier research suggests long-term consumption of artificial sweeteners could increase your risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome — which affects your risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Some research even shows artificial sweeteners can alter your blood sugar levels, causing you to crave more sugar or carbohydrates — thereby defeating the purpose of drinking them in the first place!

Why diet sodas aren’t good for health

Artificial sweeteners may actually contribute to obesity and other health problems. We’ve all been told that artificially sweetened drinks are healthier options than their sugary counterparts.

But research is raising questions about whether these diet beverages could be doing more harm than good. A number of recent studies have suggested that regular consumption of diet soft drinks is linked to weight gain and an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The results of one study, which was published in February 2014, were particularly eye-opening: The researchers found that drinking just one can of diet soda per day led to significantly higher risks for cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks.