You may want to put down that Diet Coke in favor of its more traditional, sugary alternative.
New studies - including one that will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition - suggest that drinking diet soda may in fact increase risk of: depression, diabetes, and - most shockingly - obesity.
That's right: Drinking diet soda may make you fat.
Revelations about diet soda leading to higher risk of diabetes were culled from a study by France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research in which the routine diets of more than 65,000 middle-aged women were tracked between the years of 1993 and 2007.
Adding to what was reported in an April 2012 Sharecare article about diet soda consumption's ostensible link with metabolic health issues (leading to increased risk of: heart attack/stroke, Type 2 diabetes, asthma, and cancer), this latest analysis found that drinking just one 12-ounce diet soda drink a week can increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes by an astonishing 33 percent.
This also means that inveterate soda imbibers really do need to ignore the hype on diet carbonated drinks, as they are in fact more likely to lead to Type 2 diabetes than their sugar-infused counterparts, according to epidemiologists Francoise Clavel-Chapelon and Guy Fagherazzi who took part in the study's research.
More astounding still is that by increasing one's diet soda weekly dose from 12 ounces to 20 a week results in a 66 percent higher risk of Type 2 diabetes (compared to the 33 percent increase of a 12-oz.-a-week drinker, remember).
The study goes on to unveil the reality that drinking diet soda can lead to a higher risk of obesity by the notions that: 1) Artificial sweetened goodies lead to a higher craving (and thus, likely, higher consumption of) more sweet stuff, 2) Your body actually reacts very similarly to aspartame (re: NutraSweet, Equal, etc.) as it does to sugar.
"Aspartame, one of the main artificial sweeteners used today, causes an increase in glycaemia and consequently a rise in the insulin level in comparison to that produced by sucrose [table sugar]," researchers said.
Though they did confess that more research is still needed to confirm "a causal link between diet sodas and Type 2 diabetes," according to Yahoo! Shine (namely as regards to possible environmental/diet changes in recent years), the French analysts did conclude that, "We cannot rule out that factors other than ASB [artificially sweetened beverages] are responsible for the association with diabetes."
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes in the U.S. with nearly one out of ten Americans suffering from the disease that can lead to: blindness, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and nervous system damage.
Further recent studies have shown that diet soda may also lead to depression and, again, obesity.
Any person interested in making changes to his/her diet/health routines is reminded to always consult with a medical professional first.
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