A lot of people believe that they are making the healthier choice by drinking diet soda rather than regular soda — but unfortunately it’s the diet soda that can pose health concerns.
In the Boston Health Journal, we recently discussed how diet sodas could contribute to obesity, despite the fact that they are labeled as being “diet.” In the study discussed, it was found that about one-third of participants, who were an average weight at the beginning of the study, were overweight at its completion. At that time, the researchers noted that it might not be due to the diet soda, but rather other lifestyle choices that led to the weight gain. The switch to diet soda might have been in an effort to curb weight gain, which participants might have noticed and attempted to control with diet drinks. Continuing that discussion on soft drinks, we bring you yet another study on the issue.
This new study was printed in the medical journal Obesity Research, and found that a sweetener often used in soft drinks might make the body store more fat, as compared to the fat stored due to the consumption of regular sugar. Researchers began the study based on rising obesity rates in the United States, which have been blamed on a high- fructose diet. They wanted to determine what role fructose might play in the obesity rates. Soft drinks are often sweetened with fructose. Now, while this substance occurs naturally in such foods as fruit, it is artificially added to soft drinks and juices, and is used in lieu of regular sugar. This particular study was conducted on mice, all of which weighed in at 39 grams at the beginning of the study. They were split into four groups. One group was given unlimited access to fructose-sweetened water, another to soda sweetened with sucrose instead of fructose, another a diet soda, and the last group was given water. Researchers noticed that those drinking the fructose water ate less than the other three groups, however, they still gained the most amount of body fat — on average eight grams — which was an increase of almost 11% body fat. This was more than the normal five grams of weight gained by the mice in the other groups.
The group drinking water had an increase of body fat of five percent, those in the soft drink (which was made with sugar and with the usual fructose) and diet soft drink groups gained roughly seven to eight percent of body fat.
Researchers hypothesized that the difference in weight gain was based on the way the body processes fructose versus sucrose, which led to a marked increase in weight, thereby helping to explain the increasing obesity rates in the United States. One paper — put out by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1994 — found that Americans consume roughly 132 calories of high-fructose corn syrup per day, with 20% consuming upward of 316 calories.
That paper noted that over-consumption of fructose in sweetened drinks, such as sodas, can play a role in the rising obesity concern in America.
The lesson here? You are best off sticking to water when attempting to control your weight.
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Tags: general health news, obesity
