There was another eight year study done at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio that looked specifically at obesity risk from soft drinks. They found that diet soda drinkers were much more likely to become obese than regular soda drinkers. Here is the breakdown:

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 26 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

• 30.4 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

• 32.8 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

• 47.2 percent for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

• 36.5 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

• 37.5 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

• 54.5 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

• 57.1 percent for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41 percent.

To hear the rest of the story, go to my blog and read the following post:

Diet Sodas Make You Fat

I recommend not drinking any soda you will decrease your weight, caffeine level, simple sugars etc. overall you will be healthier without drinking soda at all. Instead try milk, juice (natural juices or low sugar), water, vitamin water. I stopped drinking soda gradually (from caffeine sodas. to caffeine free) eventually stopped drinking it period. I feel so much better, lost weight etc.

|

well just to straighten things out, any commercial fermented drink like beer and the like are also force carbonated (artificially) unless otherwise stated, because they are pasteurized through boiling which removes the carbonation and alchohol, and they just put it back in later. also its just carbon dioxide and doesn't hurt you at all because it can't enter your blood stream through your stomach, so no it doesn't damage your bones.

But back on topic, we all know that artificial sweeteners are bad, aside from their obvious links to cancer and addictiveness, they now have all these new studies going for them making them even worse. i can say from personal experience when i was younger and used to drink 4 or 5 diet sodas a day, i had massive cravings for sweets to the point where i would end up eating easily 1000 calories of candy, cakes, etc. in one sitting. my diet got much better and i lost a lot of weight but the last thing i had to give up was the diet sodas which was hard but i don't have the abnormal cravings for sweets i used to, a little chunk of dark chocolate does just fine. my verdict on these studies, hey no big surprise, lets be serious how often has anything artificial turned out to be good for the body.

Trish18,

Yeah!!!! Keep up the good dietary changes, letting go of the diet soda is not easy, and the gradual decrease is the best way and finding a more healthier alternative. I once read that coke soda can clean off a car battery, thats just how harsh the ingredients are. Well, I'm not sure if this is true, but I read about it.  

Do these studies account for behavioral patters (e.g. people who drink diet soda may have worse nutritional habits or maybe they think they can splurge elsewhere because they drink diet sodas)? Even if there is a biological reason, might there be a way to counter it without cutting out soda completely? I know that many experts say that a diet that completely cuts out treats is not sustainable. My diet dr. pepper in the morning and my diet coke and lunch are 2 things i really look forward to and enjoy as much as i enjoy a plate of french fries, yet it's a vice that has no calories associated with it. i feel like there must be some way to keep my weakness for sweet, carbonated beverages without being doomed to failure in the weight loss or maintenance department.

dcfhockeyfoo wrote:

Do these studies account for behavioral patters (e.g. people who drink diet soda may have worse nutritional habits or maybe they think they can splurge elsewhere because they drink diet sodas)? Even if there is a biological reason, might there be a way to counter it without cutting out soda completely? I know that many experts say that a diet that completely cuts out treats is not sustainable. My diet dr. pepper in the morning and my diet coke and lunch are 2 things i really look forward to and enjoy as much as i enjoy a plate of french fries, yet it's a vice that has no calories associated with it. i feel like there must be some way to keep my weakness for sweet, carbonated beverages without being doomed to failure in the weight loss or maintenance department.

There are people who drink diet soda and lose weight. So, there is no guarantee that it will make you fat. Studies do show that the more you drink, the more you increase your chances. I don't know if they can really prove why that is yet without more study. Another study done at Purdue University was done with rats. The report, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, presents some counterintuitive findings: Animals fed with artificially sweetened yogurt over a two-week period consumed more calories and gained more weight - mostly in the form of fat - than animals eating yogurt flavored with glucose, a natural, high-calorie sweetener. The new study, say the scientists, offers stronger evidence that how we eat may depend on automatic, conditioned responses to food that are beyond our control.

What they mean is that like Pavlov's dog, trained to salivate at the sound of a bell, animals are similarly trained to anticipate lots of calories when they taste something sweet - in nature, sweet foods are usually loaded with calories. When an animal eats a saccharin-flavored food with no calories, however - disrupting the sweetness and calorie link - the animal tends to eat more and gain more weight, the new study shows. The study was even able to document at the physiological level that animals given artificial sweeteners responded differently to their food than those eating high-calorie sweetened foods. The sugar-fed rats, for example, showed the expected uptick in core body temperature at mealtime, corresponding to their anticipation of a bolus of calories that they would need to start burning off - a sort of metabolic revving of the energy engines. The saccharin-fed animals, on the other hand, showed no such rise in temperature. "The animals that had the artificial sweetener appear to have a different anticipatory response," says Susan Swithers, a professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University and a co-author of the study. "They don't anticipate as many calories arriving." The net result is a more sluggish metabolism that stores, rather than burns, incoming excess calories.

Swithers stops short of saying that the animals in her study were compelled to overeat to compensate for phantom calories. But she says that the study does suggest artificial sweeteners somehow disrupt the body's ability to regulate incoming calories. "It's still a bit of a mystery why they are overeating, but we definitely have evidence that the animals getting artificially sweetened yogurt end up eating more calories than the ones getting calorically sweetened yogurt."