12/31/2023 0 Comments Coca cola wood radio clock![]() But there’s a huge complicating factor in understanding what that means: For decades, advertisements recommended that people who were already worried about-or already had-some of those same health concerns substitute diet drinks for those with real sugar, and many such people still make those substitutions in order to adhere to low-carb diets or even out their blood sugar. Regular, sustained diet-soda consumption has been linked to weight gain, Type 2 diabetes, and increased risk of stroke, among other things-understandably troublesome correlations for people worried about their health. These studies can’t tell you if the behavior caused the outcome, but they can establish an association that’s worth investigating further. The lion’s share of research on this topic happens in what are known as observational studies-scientists track consumption and record health outcomes, looking for commonalities and trends linking behavior and effects. It’s worth reviewing what is actually known or suspected about diet sodas and health. What, exactly, is anyone supposed to do with any of this information, except feel bad about the things they enjoy? The more warnings there are, the less actionable any particular one of them feels. Over the past few decades, a growing number of foods and behaviors have become the regular subject of vague, ever-changing health warnings-fake sweeteners, real sugar, wine, butter, milk (dairy and non), carbohydrates, coffee, fat, chocolate, eggs, meat, veganism, vegetarianism, weightlifting, drinking a lot of water, and scores of others. I’d bet on the right horse! Instead, I felt nothing so much as irritation. I may not feel better now, but many years down the road (knock on wood), I’ll be better off. Yesterday, Reuters reported that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer will soon declare aspartame, the sweetener used in Diet Coke and many other no-calorie sodas, as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” I probably should have felt vindicated. Besides the caffeine, they appeared to make no difference in how good or bad I felt at all. But the diet sodas had not, as it turns out, been preventing me from getting great sleep or calming my rosacea or feeling, I don’t know, zesty. I still stick to seltzer anyway-because, you know, who knows?-and I’ve mostly forgotten that Diet Coke exists. Seven years later, I feel no better than I ever did drinking four or five cans of the stuff a day. I switched to seltzer on the spot, prepared to join the smug converted and receive whatever health benefits were sure to accrue to me for my good behavior.Įxcept they never came. After years of turning my nose up at the thought of LaCroix, I realized that much of what I enjoyed about Diet Coke was its frigidity and fizz. Then I tried my first can of unsweetened seltzer at a friend’s apartment. Yet I’d loved my DCs too much to be swayed. I’d also heard whispers about the larger suspected d angers of fake sweeteners. For years, I’d heard anecdotes about people who forsook diet drinks and felt their health improve seemingly overnight-better sleep, better skin, better energy. You’d think quitting would have been agonizing. A few years later, my then-boyfriend swathed two 12-packs in wrapping paper and put them under his Christmas tree. When I moved into my freshman college dorm, the first thing I did was stock my mini fridge with cans. Every morning in high school, I’d slam one with breakfast, and then I’d make sure to shove some quarters (a simpler time) in my back pocket to use in the school’s vending machines. I was born and raised in suburban Atlanta, home to the Coca-Cola Company’s global headquarters, and I had never lived in a home without Diet Coke stocked in the refrigerator at all times.
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