The Myth Surrounding Diet Soda

"It's diet soda so it has to be good for you right?" Wrong.

To the surprise of many Americans, many of the diet sodas being touted as a healthy alternative to the more popular and unhealthy, high-fructose sodas such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola are in fact just as harmful to your body and your health.

Many of us are familiar with the infamous chicken bone test -- the test in which a chicken bone was placed into a cup of Mountain Dew and disintegrated overnight into oblivion. Such decay was due in part to the phosphoric acid contained in soda which leaches calcium from your bones after every drink. Since that study, medical researchers have continuously broadcasted the harmful effects of daily soda consumption.

Overtime, drinking soda causes your body to become dehydrated due to its caffeine and sugar makeup. Instead of quenching your thirst, a can of soda actually makes you thirstier as the sugar you are ingesting acts as a diuretic of sorts. With so much bad news floating around about regular soda pop, there has been an increasing flock towards diet soda. Many Americans operate under the belief that because the can says "diet," it must be good for the body. This is a misconception that needs to be nipped in the bud.

Contrary to popular belief, research has shown that consumption of diet soda is no more beneficial to your health than the removal of regular soda. In fact, in an 8 year study performed by the University of Texas, researchers found that those individuals who made the switch to diet soft drinks increased their risk for obesity by as much as 41 percent. In some cases, soda drinkers gained more weight after switching to diet soda than before they made the switch.

So what makes diet soda so fattening and why aren't more Americans aware of this alarming fact? The answer is two-fold. One reason why Americans are not privy to the harmful effects of diet soda is due in part to the fact that diet sodas are touted as the low to no calorie alternative for your caffeine fixation. Because regular soda is high in calories, and Americans equate calories as the enemy, diet soda has reigned supreme as the alternative.

In actuality however, while diet soda may contain less calories, the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas that help give it taste also create negative hormonal responses in the your body. Such responses cause your body to crave more of sweets and even increases fat storing hormone production. As a result, instead of craving more food, your body craves more soda. Overtime, diet soda drinkers find themselves packing on more calories that they believe are due to the various foods they are eating, yet the culprit is staring them right in the face.

In the end, if you wish to decrease your intake of sugars, whether high fructose or in the form of artificial sweeteners, it is best that all soda consumption be removed from your diet and in its place should be healthy fruit drinks, or nature's best friend: water. Remember, not from a tree, the ground or occur in nature...drop it like it's hot!