The Not So Definitive Guide to Diet Soda
Before I begin, I want to make something clear: this is not your standard definitive guide to whatever. I’d like to be able to issue a proclamation regarding diet soda that stands the test of time immemorial, but I cannot. Research is still in its infancy, and exactly what diet soda does to those who drink it – if anything – is incredibly confusing. The one thing I can say with any certainty is that, while it’s unfair to say it will kill you or give your unborn child prenatal tumors or make you impossibly obese, you’re probably better off without diet soda. It tastes weird, the list of unpronounceable ingredients is too long for my comfort level, and I’ve seen one too many unsuccessful dieters that seem to live on the stuff.
There are two things to consider when making any conclusions about diet soda’s place in a healthy diet. Do the ingredients used in diet soda pose a threat to your short-term or long-term (or that of your offspring’s) health? Is it a kind of sugary methadone, impeding healthy eating by making it harder to kick the desire for sweet things in your mouth because, well, you’re constantly putting things in your mouth that mimic sugar? Let’s dig in.
First, the ingredients. What goes into a can of your average diet soda?
Carbonated water, some sort of food coloring, and preservatives like potassium benzoate are all innocuous enough. Nothing to worry about there. You won’t see Mercola issuing dire warnings about Caramel Color No. 76 anytime soon. It’s the other stuff that interests (or worries) us: artificial sweeteners and (to a lesser extent) phosphoric acid. Let’s take a look at the two major sweeteners in popular use, aspartame and sucralose. Are they dangerous?
Aspartame gets a bad rap. High dose rat studies implicate it as a carcinogen, but in exceedingly large amounts. A can of diet soda a day probably won’t give you cancer. Would I avoid it as a pregnant mother? Yes. Would I be wary of drinking several cans a day? Yes. The basic takeaway is that while the clinical evidence of immediate danger upon normal ingestion of aspartame is lacking, inconclusive, or unclear, the vast amount of anecdotal evidence from people linking aspartame to headaches, migraines, panic attacks, and other maladies gives me great pause. I mean, the stuff tastes horrible, and that’s enough for me, but some people appear to have real health issues with aspartame. Not everyone, obviously, but some do. If aspartame appears to give you trouble, don’t let PubMed convince you that it’s harmless. It may very well be safe in the amounts we typically consume in the majority of people, but you can’t ignore your own experiences.
Also known as Splenda, sucralose is a popular sweetener that’s often called “natural” because it’s the product of selective sucrose chlorination. It’s 3.3 times sweeter than aspartame and 600 times sweeter than sucrose. It seems to have less of a disgusting aftertaste than aspartame (it’s all foul to me, though). Like aspartame, most of the studies reporting negative effects used insanely high doses of sucralose. I’m talking doses in the area of thousands of Splenda packets a day for months on end. I’m no fan, but I don’t think normal consumption of the stuff will kill you. There was a study that found normal doses (between 1.1 and 11.1 mg/kg per day; recommended maximum daily dosage is 5 mg/kg) of sucralose negatively impacted the gut flora in rats and lead to weight gain, although a later review called the study’s results into question. I’ll pass, but thanks, expert panel. There’s also the fact that sucralose is usually combined with something called acesulfame-K (potassium), another sweetener that many researchers think needs more toxicity tests. My take? Studies showing negative effects may be overstated or misguided, but why take the risk for that weird chemical aftertaste? Just avoid the stuff to be on the safe side.
And then there’s phosphoric acid. Here’s how the story supposedly goes: phosphoric acid, which soda makers use in place of pricier citric acid, leaches calcium from your bones and reduces bone mineral density. Is it true? Well, it’s become pretty clear that foods containing dietary phosphorus – like meat, dairy, and other “evil” foods – strengthen bones, rather than leach from them. But phosphorus isn’t exactly the same as phosphoric acid, which epidemiological studies have connected with loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis. One in particular found that only colas (both diet and regular) were strongly associated with loss of bone mineral density. What do colas have that other diet sodas largely do not? Caffeine plus phosphoric acid. A more recent controlled trial found that only fizzy drinks containing caffeine resulted in increased calcium excretion; phosphoric acid content exerted no effect, either alone or in concert with caffeine. I don’t think we can implicate phosphoric acid just yet.
Okay, but remember: we’ve got to be careful when analyzing a food’s worth by singling out one of its constituent parts for good or for bad (although diet soda is by all definitions not food, it is a consumable whose stated purpose is to help dieters lose weight by avoiding sugar). Let’s judge diet soda on that. It may be technically safe to consume, but does it do its “job”? Does it help us lose weight by replacing our sugar intake with non-caloric sweetener intake and reducing cravings?
By most accounts, no. If you look at the literature, diet soda has repeatedly been shown to correlate with weight gain and increased incidence of metabolic syndrome:
One study found evidence of a linear dose-response; the more diet soda people drank, the more likely they were to be overweight or obese. As Sharon Fowler, the author of the study, puts it, “for each diet soft drink our participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese.”
Another study, which I covered a couple years ago, analyzed the diets of more than 9,500 men and women between the ages of 45 and 64 and found that drinking diet soda was associated with a 34% higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome – the perfect storm of high triglycerides, belly fat, insulin resistance, and obesity that’s so popular nowadays. This was an even stronger association than the one between the “high-meat, high-fat” Western diet and metabolic syndrome.
Authors of both studies speculate that diet soda drinking just extends the life of sugar cravings, rather than eliminating it. In this scenario, diet soda doesn’t regulate the desire for sugar; it increases it, and diet soda drinkers are simply replacing those empty calories with real sugar. This makes sense, and I think it’s part of it, but a couple other studies suggest that something else is going on entirely independent of caloric intake:
The dietary habits and weights of a homogenous group of middle aged women were tracked for a year. Regardless of initial weight status and inexplicable by “food consumption patterns,” users of diet soda were more likely than nonusers to gain weight. They didn’t eat markedly different from non-soda drinkers and yet they got fatter. It continues…
A more recent study broke rats up into two groups. The first received ad libitum oral doses of water sweetened with the maximum Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of saccharin, aspartame, cyclamate, and acesulfame-K (the same formulae used in commercial sweeteners), while the second group received plain water. Both were given ad libitum access to standard rat chow (which usually resembles the SAD: a disgusting mix of vegetable oils and sucrose). While caloric intake did not change between groups, the rats given non-caloric sweeteners experienced greater increases in bodyweight. The rats apparently weren’t driven to eat more because of confused satiety signals, and yet they still gained more weight. What gives?
Are diet soda drinkers eating more actual sweets to make up for the missing calories? Are their satiety signal hormones being altered by some chemical additive? Or is something in the diet soda actually causing weight gain independent of caloric intake?
We simply don’t know. We do know, however, that our bodies respond to everything they encounter. You lift a weight, you send a message to your body (build more muscle, make bones denser, establish neural pathways for movement!). You put food in your mouth, that elicits a response, even before the food hits your gut, as with the carbohydrate mouth rinse that increases athletic performance. It may be that introducing artificial sweeteners directly to your gut (bypassing the tongue) doesn’t affect subjective satiety or satiety hormones, but that’s not how we drink diet sodas. We taste them. With our tongues. And there is a decent amount of (mixed) evidence that certain artificial sweeteners in certain situations in certain individuals can actually elicit hormonal responses from taste alone, leading to hunger that isn’t really there and perhaps even insulin to handle dietary glucose that was never actually eaten. The details of any effect artificial sweeteners have on our hunger hormones are still being teased out, and the subject demands a dedicated post sometime in the future – so stay tuned for that.
In the end, diet sodas contain potentially harmful chemical additives and phosphoric acid that may or may not leach minerals. The majority of people who drink them to lose weight are unsuccessful, and most epidemiological evidence and some clinical evidence has linked diet soda intake to increased obesity, even irrespective of caloric intake. It may be that tasting sweet stuff without a corresponding caloric dose is throwing off our satiety signals and messing with our normal hormonal response to food, or perhaps relying on fake sugar just makes it harder to give up the real stuff.
Of course, whether they have a place in your diet is up to you. Maybe you’ll buck the trend and lose more weight and experience greater relief from sugar cravings with diet soda. Maybe you have one every few days and no more. If you’re a dedicated diet soda addict, maybe experiment with slowly eliminating it from your diet. Drink a bit less than usual and see how you feel. Try to save your 80/20 allowance for something a bit more fun, like maybe a high quality full-fat ice cream or a hunk of super dark chocolate (which actually has some nutritional merit, like good dairy fat). I’m gonna say that ideally you ditch them altogether, mostly because they seem to reinforce bad habits in most people and because the long term effects aren’t fully known.
Whatever you do, don’t start a diet soda habit after reading this post!
Comments? Concerns? Give me your diet soda stories. I want to hear about the aspartame headaches, the effect Splenda has on your satiety, and anything you can think of. Don’t hold back!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
I have never been a huge soda drinker, so for me giving it up was not a big deal, I honestly just don’t get how soda would even fall into primal living? We all make such an effort to avoid foods that have all of this crap in it why is a beverage any different? I would much rather have the occasional glass of wine instead of a soda.
I find kombucha to be a very satisfying replacement for pop, diet or otherwise. You can easily brew it at home if you dont like the commercial stuff. It has a small amount of carbohydrate depending on how long you let it ferment before drinking and is very refreshing. Not sure how paleo it is because the culture requires sugar but the sugar is mostly fermented out.
Lucky for me I’ve never really been a fan of soda. But I LOOOOOVE carbonated mineral water!
I don’t think I would have been able to kick my soda habit without mineral water. I love it.
I don’t drink soda of any kind – diet or otherwise.
I do, occasionally, drink 3-4 glasses per day of sucralose-sweetened squash, which I always dilute to half the recommended dilution. The ingredients include the following: –
Citric Acid
Sodium Citrate
Malic Acid
Potassium Sorbate
Sodium Metabisulphite
As far as I know, these all have clean toxicology reports.
it is 50% fruit-juice, though, which is why I dilute it to half the recommended strength (makes it about 0.5g carb per serving as opposed to 1).
Least I now know it won’t kill me!
Diet soda’s give me headaches, just one can is enough to trigger one. It’s simply over priced (more expensive than petrol in Australia), utterly pointless, addictive rubbish, get rid of it from your diet!
Water, unsweetened coffee & tea, and the occasional bourbon/scotch is all I need.
Great post M!
This post sent me into my archives for a couple gems I don’t see mentioned here.
First up, try Googling “The Brain May Not Be Fooled by Sugar Substitutes” for an L.A. Times article a while back. Apparently, your brain knows the difference between real carbohydrates and artificial sweeteners as soon as the are in you mouth and regardless of whether you can consciously tell the difference or not. Wonder how this is affecting our satiety and appetite responses? I wonder how the athletes would have performed in the above-mentioned mouth-swish study if half of them had gotten artificially sweetened liquid?
Also, check out “Artificial Sweetener May Disrupt Body’s Ability To Count Calories” from ScienceDaily in 2004. The researchers contend that artificial sweeteners break our body’s ability to register how much food we’ve eaten.
After all that, though, I’m still struggling with the stuff. If I give up artificial sweeteners, that means I have to give up coffee. Scary.
Thanks!
Just a thought about your coffee……what flavor are you trying to hide with the sweetener? I like the first couple sips of hot coffee, but it starts to get too acid tasting for me. I find adding heavy cream actually sweetens it enough and I look forward to it. May just try it… and a good fat in the process. Some use coconut oil or cream I have heard.
I’m with you, I really don’t like totally black coffee. I dropped the sweetener altogether a while back and just used heavy cream, as you suggest. I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, my M.D. has asked me to be casein-free for a while – no cow’s or goat’s milk of any type or amount.
I could give the coconut milk a try, though. That might work.
Aspartame….Yuummmm. Especially when you find out that it was produced using the feces of the e-coli bacteria. It’s a nearly a bio weapon. You know what else is sweet tasting too?? Anit-freeze. I live in Japan and Aspartame is Illegal in this country, does that tell you anything? Look into it and try to get out of your body.
Great article but please don’t let this toxic substance be underestimated.
Um, if people can eat chicken feet and cow’s eyes…what’s the difference?
So what is a “high quality full-fat ice cream?” I’ve been having ice cream cravings like crazy latey, so I’d like to know a good brand to buy.
All of the organic or “natural” ones I’ve found (Horizon and Haggen Daz “Five”) use non-fat milk. Luna & Larry’s coconut milk ice cream is good, but sometimes I want the real thing.
Is B&J’s any good over there? The stuff over here’s not bad (it even contains coconut oil; the only problem for me (Choc Macadamia’s my favourite) is the soya lecithin, as I try to avoid all soy products).
My treat of choice, though, is the one from a lady I know in town. She makes it herself, from scratch, so I know exactly what goes in it!!
You’ve now given me an ice-cream craving, ya evil git!
Have you thought of making your own? You can control the ingredients and amount of sugar. My grandkids love it when we take 1 cup of heavy cream (raw if I can find it) placed in a quart baggie, add a small amount of sugar and place the quart bag in a bigger bag and surround it with ice and rock salt. The kids get to work the bags until ice cream forms and then add berries (picked from the yard), coconut, dark chocolate or anything that I have on hand. Really good and not that bad for you, and you can control the amount you have to eat unlike that quart or half gallon calling to you from the freezer.
I used to drink a ton of soda back when I was a blimp.(5’6″ 330#) since going primal about a year now (been at 99% for a month now with 1 cheat meal that made me sick) when I desire something sweet to drink, I cut up fruit and put it in a pitcher of ice water. I also am enjoying sliced cucumber in ice water too.. Occasionally I will have a soda, but I have one and done. Definitly get cravings after though.
I used to be quite keen on sprite zero for a while, but I replaced it with water and right now I think pretty much every kind of soda, diet or not, tastes like horror.
I don’t know if anyone has tried this but I have recently heard of making something called kefir sodas with water kefir grains. I have ordered some of them myself but have yet to receive them so I don’t have a personal testimony to their taste. I’ve never been addicted to soda or anything, but I do enjoy drinking bubbly beverages from time to time and with using the water kefir grains to make this you are getting some probiotics as well.
Kefir sodas are yummy! My favorite lemon. It’s fizzy, not too sweet and lots of probiotics.
Here are some links to great resources:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/09/how-to-make-homemade-kefir-soda-pop-why-make-kefir-soda-pop-and-how-does-it-taste.html
http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/06/05/how-to-make-homemade-soda-pop-with-kefir-grains/
I will occasionally allow myself to have a diet coke… usually when I’m around family members that drink it often, but after reading this, man, I am SO done.
Gross and not worth it.
Honest to goodness, I’ve never had any soda for 5years now. I made it as my New Year’s resolution years ago and I’m just so proud to still stick to this very day.
I had a bad experience with aspartame a couple of years ago, but I was consuming excessive amounts. Basically, I got hooked on sugar free gum to the extent that it was definitely a compulsive behaviour (I was chewing up to 40 pieces of Orbit daily – I’d chew a piece, then add a second and a third, until the flavour started to go. Then I’d spit that out and start again). I only chewed at work, mind you, but that was enough. The sorbitol (a laxative, I might add) in the gum gave me painful gas after a few hours, but worse than that, I started to experience hormonal fluctuations (I am female and my cycle got completely out of whack, which I initially thought was down to my age, having just turned 40 – but that turned out not to be the case), I got spaced out and felt dizzy often, I had palpitations, then my immune system went down the toilet and I contracted very virus going for about 8 months including a cold, influenza and bronchitis, a 48 hour vomiting but, and on top of that, bad cystitis.
I did some ‘net research and found a site detailing various symptoms of aspartame poisoning, and many of mine were listed. I went gum cold turkey and also stopped drinking Diet Coke. Within a few months I was better.
I guess in limited doses, it’s not all that bad, but I do view it as a poison, and one that I am very wary about consuming again. I stick to water now, if I want a cold drink, and I leave gum well alone.
I am a faithful Diet Coke drinker, and reading this does make me want to stop. However, I wonder if it’s pointless to stop the Diet Coke if I still intend to use Equal in my yogurt and other products I want to sweeten? I guess I just don’t know enough about acceptable (Primal) natural and artificial sweeteners to be able to see the bigger picture here…
Mark, you didn’t include what I figured would be the core of your post- Grok certainly did not consume anything resembling soda, diet or otherwise. Sure, it may not kill you right away, but from a primal perspective, it has no health benefits and possible health concerns. Wouldn’t that fall under the “avoid poisonous things” category?
Katie, you are right in that Grok did not consume anything like soda, and there are no health benefits to be derived from doing so. As you can see from some of the comments, even some dedicated long time Primal converts still sneak a diet soda (or more) once in a while. The stuff is ubiquitous. MDA is about finding ways to incorporate the Primal Blueprint principles into real life. I want people to understand the possible ramifications of their choices. I write pieces like this almost more to appeal to first-time visitors who really haven’t a clue than to die-hard MDAers, because real life still offers temptations. This piece just took a look at the existing science behind what happens when you drink soda. No judgment (Okay, maybe just a little). And, yes, it still falls into “avoid poisonous things.”
Hi I gave up diet soda. Hansen’s Diet Ginger ale was my favorite. Drank 4-6 a day.
Now all I drink is water and sometimes herbal tea.
I also drink perrier or other unsweetened sparkling water to get the ‘fizz’ that i miss from soda. Is carbonated water fine?
Aspartame is the reason I had 20 years of horrendous migraines. Haven’t had any sort of headache for the last year, tho, after purging my cabinets and fridge of aspartame-containing items, including syrup, pickled ginger, Jello and chewing gum. Trident cinnamon is the only gum I’ve found that’s aspartame-free, and there are a few diet sodas sweetened with sucralose rather than aspartame.
Sucralose & Acesulfame-K are exactly what gave me horrendous migraines, though! I don’t think it’s much of an improvement over aspartame.
I second that. Awful migraines from sucralose.
I’m a dedicated diet soda drinker who gives this a lot of consideration . Wishing to test the theory that artificial sweeteners cause insulin response; I measured my blood sugar before drinking soda, then at various intervals after and there was no fluctuation .
Also… fearing that it might somehow effect my training negatively I abstained for two weeks and experienced know appreciable difference. That being said, I’m still convinced that it’s killing me somehow.
I notice that a number of my larger very non-primal co-workers will order burger & fries for lunch or a giant burrito, along with a diet soda — as if the soda is a nod toward watching their calories. There is definitely a disconnect here…
I’ve seen people do that too. Diet soda is the great enabler.
I began drinking diet sodas in the’70s. I was very thin at the time.It did not cause weight gain or sugar cravings.I did refrain from drinking soda, of any kind, while pregnant.
Diet Pepsi was my lifeline for many years when I was suffering from undiagnosed thyroid disease. I’m sure it was the caffeine that helped me function and take care of my children.
My weight gain was directly correlated to my thyroid issues. A little over 2 years ago, I was finally adequately medicated in regards to thyroid. By this time I was 65+ pounds overweight.
Today finds me 65lbs lighter. I lost the weight while consuming several cans of Diet Pepsi daily. My bone density, once in the osteopenia range, has improved and is now normal. My fasting blood sugar in Oct,2010 was 83, fasting insulin was <2, HbA1c-4.7.
Around Thanksgiving 2010 I decided to do the Whole30 challenge to see if I could give up my Diet Pepsi. I went 50 days without DP and then,deliberately, drank one can. It didn't taste as good as I remember and gave me indigestion. I haven't had any more since that one can.
I don't think DP creates any issues for me. I have no plans to return to my "many cans a day" habit. I think I'll just take it day by day. Today I am DP free.
This is a big deal to me, There are (were) 3 women in my immediate family diagnosed with MS. They were all heavy. They were advised to lose weight. They all started low fat diets. They all developed Gallstones and had their gallbladders removed. They all suffer from Migraines. One had diabetes. THEY ALL DRANK MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF DIET SODA TO LOSE WEIGHT. MS is NOT supposed to be hereditary! There is a link between diet soda/artificial sweeteners and MS. If you know of any further research in this department please post!
(FYI) I avoid all artificial sweeteners because I have had some brutal migraines that can only be associated with them, and I fixed my own gallbladder after being scheduled for surgery with a HIGH FAT diet…lol
I have MS and I do know that they claim MS and aspartame do not mix well ,and diagnosising MS if you are a die hard diet pop drinker can be a little harder ,as to much aspartame will mimic the sign’s of MS . I have been told by my Dr’s that I would be so much better off drinking regular pop rather than diet if I was going to continue drinking pop .I have almost quit completely with no side affect and I was a die hard 3 to 4 two liters a day of Diet Pepsi or Diet Dr Pepper .I have gone to ice tea ,and seem to be doing better .
A model of scientific objectivity. I used to have one or two diet Cokes per day in hot weather, some in cooler. Now I might have one or two a week in hot weather, none in cooler. I wasn’t doing it to lose weight. They taste better, and less sweet than Cokes with sugar. I don’t get a sweet response from them at all, nor an unpleasant one.
On a lighter (pun intended) note, I worked for Outback Steakhouse for 13 years and was always amazed at how overweight people would order Cheese fries or a Bloomin onion…and a diet coke..lol for real? It isnt going to negate the trash you are about to consume..
I used to work at a buffet. It was not uncommon to see obese guests order diet coke, then return to the buffet line 3 or 4 times.
Not a big deal – just goes to show that they too prefer the taste of the diet better…cuz they certainly ones to choose for health reasons.
Stevia – in rats, it stimulates pancreatic beta cells to produce insulin. Im wondering if this is why (despite low carb diet with great attention to low glycemic veg) my A1c is in the 5.5-5.8 range (should be in 4s low 5s). Fasting BS are low 80s. Could be that ketogenic diet has me somewhat insulin resistant, but looking forward to your upcoming article with more thoughts on this. It is my biggest remaining “vice” but at 19 BMI and less that 15% body fat, I kind of “rely” on it.
I don’t really drink soda (softdrink in Australia) and never have. Mum always made us drink a truckload of water before we were allowed any where near juice as kids. And until I ‘went primal’ I always diluted juice in 2 parts water (too sweet). But the real reason I’m adding to this discussion was a memory I have that always springs to mind when I think about obesity and soda.
I was in a shopping centre one day and heard an obese little girl (4 or 5 years I guess) who was being pushed around in a trolley by her mother (who was a little overweight but not obese). The little girl had a diet coke with a straw in her hands, and said to her mother ‘Mum, I’m thirsty’. Her mother scoffed and said, ‘You have a drink stop complaining’. I nearly cried.
I have never had one can/bottle/cup of soda in my life. My mother never gave it to me, and I never wanted it. Sure, it made me the “weird kid” at birthday parties growing up, but I never wanted a drink that made “my tongue hurt.”
Fast forward to being an adult and I think it is one of the reasons why I have always been healthier than most Americans. All of that water or even juice and milk instead of soda over the years has really paid off!
The sad part is that when people hear that I’ve never had a soft drink, people think I’m from Mars or something. How did I survive the 80s as a kid, during the height of the cola wars, without trying one? No Pepsi taste test, really? People think it is crazy that I have not put such things in my body, wouldn’t Grok think it was crazy if I did?
I enjoyed your read on diet sodas and sweeteners! My boyfriend and I avoid all kinds of soda at all costs for that reason of them containing strange chemicals. However, with regards to sweeteners, we have had extreme difficulty finding good protein mixes for ease and protein supplements when on the go that don’t contain some form of artificial sweetener. I think this whole artificial sweetener thing is the new HFCS to help accomodate the sweet palates of Americans. Now that we’ve cut out most sweets in our diets we find that the artificial sweeteners are too sweet and don’t sit well in our bellies. We recently have found all natural whey protein that we can purchase in bulk and find it much more satisfying.
Isopure makes a whey protien isolate that is flavor free–no artificial anything–just pure whey protien. I occasionally mix it with 8 ounces of coconut milk, 4 ounces of water and a bit of vanilla extract. If I’m recovering from a workout, I’ll add a frozen banana (if not, a few berries for fewer carbs.)
I don’t do diet, but I do have a slight addiction to Coca Cola & Whiskey (Jim Beam specifically). mmmn.. Anyway, only on the weekends (Fri & Sat night), then drink only water during the week (except the morning cup of coffee & occasional beer). I do love this combo but know I would be much better off without it. Maybe this can squeak by as part of my 20%??
Meh, to me diet soda is just a cop out for people who want to feel good about doing something healthy but truly aren’t. Be comfortable with your choice and either choose to drink it or not, don’t straddle the fence and think you’re doing well.