When you’re trying to lose weight or eat healthy, one of your first instincts is to cut sugar out of your diet.
Unfortunately, sugar (or sugar substitutes) is in many of the processed products we consume on a regular basis, including drinks.
So you turn to diet drinks, assuming something with little to no calories or sugar must be healthy. But is it?
How Does Sugar Affect Your Brain?
Before we dive into the subject of diet drinks, let’s talk about sugary drinks.
We all know eating (or drinking) too much sugar can lead to health conditions like heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes, but what you may not realize is that it can also have a powerful effect on your brain.
Recent studies show that the fructose found in sugary drinks—namely, sodas and sports drinks—may lead to the following symptoms:
- Poor memory
- Smaller brain volume
- Smaller hippocampus (which is an area crucial for memory and learning)
Artificial sweeteners are low-calorie substitutes to fructose. They provide all the sweetness of regular sugar without the calories, making them an attractive substitution for those looking to lose weight or stick to a diet – hence their popularity in diet sodas. The most common artifical sweeteners include acesulfame potassium (Sunett), aspartame (NutraSweet or Equal), sucralose (Splenda), D-Tagotose (Sugaree) and saccharin (Sweet 'N Low).
With none of the calories and all of the sweetness, it's easy to see why artificial sweeteners are so appealing. Yet despite their benefits, many nutritionists recommend avoiding artificial sweeteners at all costs – particularly aspartme and sucralose.
So Are Artificial Sweeteners Better Than Sugar?
With all the health concerns surrounding sugary sodas and sports drinks, drinking diet versions seems like the responsible choice. But don’t be fooled; it isn’t.
The artificial sweeteners in diet drinks may actually be worse for you than sugar. According to a recent study, people who consume diet drinks on a daily basis increase their risk of stroke and dementia by approximately three times.
It's worth noting, however, that this study indicates the relationship between diet sweenteners and health problems is correlation and not causation. The diet drinks themselves may not be to blame; many who drink them on a regular basis have other lifestyle habits that put them at an increased risk for stroke and dementia.
However, there are plenty of reasons that you should drop that diet soda. Researchers have studied the sweetener alternatives in the past decades. While some studies have been inconclusive, many have found that artificial sugar can cause:
- More sugar cravings - Sweetness causes the human brain to signal your body to continue eating. Because artificial sweeteners are on average 300 times sweeter than sugar, your body may crave sugar even more.
- Weight gain - While diet drinks may cause short-term weight loss, studies show that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners leads to weight gain in the long-run. This means drinking diet drinks is actually counter-productive and no better for your health than drinking traditional soft drinks.
- Changes in taste - Artificial sweeteners mimic the sweet taste of sugar but in a much more condensed manner. In other words, a teaspoon of aspartame could taste as sweet as a tablespoon of sugar. Prolonged consumption of artificial sweeteners can actually alter your taste palatte. This can make less intensely sweet foods like fruit unappealing and unsweet foods like vegetables downright unpalatable. This is especially the case for young children, whose tastebuds are still developing.
- Kidney decline in women - A 2008 study found that women who regularly drink artificially sweetened beverages are more likely to experience kidney decline.
- Vascular events - According to the 2012 Northern Manhattan Study, diet soft drink consumption is associated with "an increased risk of vascular events," including stroke, myocardial infarction and even vascular death.
- Type 2 diabetes - A study conducted by the American Diabetes Association found that drinking diet drinks on a daily basis can increase your risk for type 2 diabetes by as much as 67 percent. They also discovered those who regularly drink them have a 36 percent greater risk for metabolic syndrome, a cluster of health issues including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels.
What’s The Solution?
When it comes to beverages, there’s nothing better for your body than plain water. If you’re a soda, sweet tea, sports drink or diet soda drinker, though, it may be difficult to make the switch all at once. Here’s a start:
- Decrease your intake little by little. For example, go from two Diet Cokes a day to one, and so forth.
- Add more water into your diet even if you’re still consuming diet or sugary drinks. This will help you become accustomed to the taste.
- Add fresh fruit to your water. It gives you a little bit of (natural) sugar without all the added chemicals and calories.
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