Posted on 01/18/2014 4:20:41 AM PST by ETL
A new study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that overweight and obese adults who drank diet beverages took in more food calories on average than their counterparts who drank the sugary stuff.
"Although overweight and obese adults who drink diet soda eat a comparable amount of total calories as heavier adults who drink sugary beverages, they consume significantly more calories from solid food at both meals and snacks," lead study author Sara Bleich, associate professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management, said in a press release.
Researchers looked at information from the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is a population-based survey that looks at the health and nutrition of U.S. adults. They looked particularly at diet beverage consumption, caloric intake and body weight.
Overall, diet soda consumption rates increased 17 percent from 1965 to today. Currently, about 20 percent of U.S. adults drink diet beverages.
Despite the calories they cut by sipping on diet drinks, researchers found adults who drank diet beverages ate more calories from solid food.
"The results of our study suggest that overweight and obese adults looking to lose or maintain their weight -- who have already made the switch from sugary to diet beverages -- may need to look carefully at other components of their solid-food diet, particularly sweet snacks, to potentially identify areas for modification," Bleich said.
The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health on Jan 16.
The researchers believe that the artificial sweeteners may activate more reward centers in the brain. This in turn affects a person's appetite, making the diet drinkers eat more food because they don’t think they are getting enough sugar in their bloodstreams.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
This is a ridiculous study. The researchers report that obese people who drank diet soda ate more. Ok, so what? Then they went way off base with their cause and effect. How can they make the correlation when they couldn’t find the same effect in people of normal weight? This is a huge flaw, in addition to offering absolutely no proof that some undefined sweet sensors in the brain force you to consume more calories to make up for the lack of sugar from regular soda. How does this happen? They never bother to tell us. I don’t know about you, but these are two huge red flags that should have ensured that this “study” never saw the light of day. But there it is. The grant money industry causes incredible things to happen.
Sure. If true, then a banana is also loaded with neurotoxin. Do you believe that as well.
You may be on to something. Many artificial sweeteners were never tested for insulin responses for non-Type 1 Diabetes. They work for patients who do not produce insulin, but have been found to increase insulin production in others. I suspect those with insulin resistence will continue to gain weight with certain diet sodas.
When I switched over to low carb, I cut out diet sodas. I observed that they stopped the ketosis process and slowed down weight loss.
If they want to convince me, they need to show skinny people who start drinking Diet Coke start gaining weight, while skinny people who do NOT start drinking Diet Coke maintain their weight.
Personally, I can drink Diet Coke at various times of the day and not be hungry until dinner time, or at least no more hungry than I am if I drink water under the same circumstances.
I think this study really shows fat people are more likely to drink Diet Coke than skinny people - what a shock!
That would depend on the concentration and exact form of aspartame in bananas vs diet soda. Perhaps the aspartame in bananas is less absorbed than with sodas. I looked, but I didn’t find much on bananas and aspartame.
Are you sure it was cm and not mm?? ;-)
Yes, you have to watch out for oxalates - especially if you are consuming a lot of calcium.
The banana serves as an excellent example for why you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet when it comes to aspartame. Even so, there are people who will continue to argue that consuming a banana is dangerous to your health. Silly, isn't it? If you eat a 4 oz. piece of cooked chicken with a glass of red wine, apple juice, or tomato juice, you will get about ten times more phenylalanine and aspartic acid than the amount found in a Diet Coke, and two to three times more methanol. Do you really think a small piece of cooked chicken and a glass of apple juice is toxic?
The fear of aspartame is irrational.
Yep, I’m with you.
IMO it’s another attempt to convince people some outside factor is responsible for their weight, instead of their own habits.
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