Do you really need to add that sugar to your coffee?
If you know me, you know how big my sweet tooth really is. I love cookies, candy and soda. I know that when I eat these sugar filled foods that these may not be the healthiest foods, but I definitely have a hard time practicing self control.
A cookie and brownie cake a friend and I made last year
In our class discussion regarding sugar, we focused on the alternative chemical sugars and the if they were a better option compared to natural sugar. When picking up a soda, I usually choose diet coke over regular. Not because I am dieting, but because I think that regular soda tastes too sweet. Our discussion in class made me question if I should pick up the red or the grey label the next time I swing by Cox Hall. In the study conducted published by the American Diabetic Association, the researchers conducted a cohort study to better understand the development of CVD. The study concluded that those who drank diet soda had higher incidence rates of type two diabetes. The risk for type two diabetes was 67% higher among diet soda drinkers compared to those who chose regular. The researchers concluded that this association was higher because the artificial sweeteners in the soda only caused the individual to crave more sugar, and this was a leading factor to them developing pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes.
The Cleveland Clinic also supports the claim that diet sodas might not be as "healthy" for three particular reasons. The first being that when we ingest sugary foods, our brain starts to crave sweetened foods more and more, and you are more prone to eat empty calories. The second reason, which connects well to the American Diabetic Association's research showing that the artificial sweeteners do interact with insulin. When we do drink diet sodas, the brain registers as sugar and signals to the pancreas to release insulin. An increase in insulin levels has been show to be related to type 2 diabetes.
This infographic explains all of the different effects of drinking soda has on the body within an hour of consumption. I would never have thought that soda had so many negative effects!
In our class discussion we did not really go over the implications that our choices have. We make choices everyday that can impact our health, so choosing diet over regular could be contributing to that heart attack that will happen in 20 years. By choosing equal over sugar to put in our coffee could effect if we need to use insulin shots in the future. I think that as a nutrition student it is easy for us to forget that our choices we make on a daily basis do impact our health. I do not know if I will be able to completely stop drinking soda, but maybe choosing to limit my consumption of diet soda is a good place to start!
In our class discussion regarding sugar, we focused on the alternative chemical sugars and the if they were a better option compared to natural sugar. When picking up a soda, I usually choose diet coke over regular. Not because I am dieting, but because I think that regular soda tastes too sweet. Our discussion in class made me question if I should pick up the red or the grey label the next time I swing by Cox Hall. In the study conducted published by the American Diabetic Association, the researchers conducted a cohort study to better understand the development of CVD. The study concluded that those who drank diet soda had higher incidence rates of type two diabetes. The risk for type two diabetes was 67% higher among diet soda drinkers compared to those who chose regular. The researchers concluded that this association was higher because the artificial sweeteners in the soda only caused the individual to crave more sugar, and this was a leading factor to them developing pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes.
The Cleveland Clinic also supports the claim that diet sodas might not be as "healthy" for three particular reasons. The first being that when we ingest sugary foods, our brain starts to crave sweetened foods more and more, and you are more prone to eat empty calories. The second reason, which connects well to the American Diabetic Association's research showing that the artificial sweeteners do interact with insulin. When we do drink diet sodas, the brain registers as sugar and signals to the pancreas to release insulin. An increase in insulin levels has been show to be related to type 2 diabetes.
This infographic explains all of the different effects of drinking soda has on the body within an hour of consumption. I would never have thought that soda had so many negative effects!
In our class discussion we did not really go over the implications that our choices have. We make choices everyday that can impact our health, so choosing diet over regular could be contributing to that heart attack that will happen in 20 years. By choosing equal over sugar to put in our coffee could effect if we need to use insulin shots in the future. I think that as a nutrition student it is easy for us to forget that our choices we make on a daily basis do impact our health. I do not know if I will be able to completely stop drinking soda, but maybe choosing to limit my consumption of diet soda is a good place to start!
I would be interested if these researchers followed up with a study on changing health behavior. I think the real problem we need to address here is that people don't want to make changes to their health behavior and they crave sweetness, but what about a health message to just drink water. I would also be interested in seeing a study on the health effects of substituting La Croix for these SSBs and diet soda drinks to see if any differences, such as weight loss, are observed. I am interested to see if people could remove SSBs and diet sodas out of their diet long term or if there is a neurological component that even makes healthier substitutes such as water or La Croix less appealing.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought that the whole diet soda concept was slightly counterproductive. To make something "diet" it has to have something taken out (in this case the sugar) and something else added (artificial sweetener). There is still so much debate about the health effects of artificial sweeteners and until there is a general consensus about whether or not we should eat them, I think we should try to avoid consuming them and instead just eat the real food (the real sugar) but in smaller quantities. That being said, a lot of times diet sodas are consumed with other unhealthy foods, so I question whether the diet soda is helping to make the drinker any healthier. As Stephanie mentioned in her comment, it would be interesting to see if the researchers had followed up with a study on any diet behavior or habit changes. I would also be interested in whether or not other diet foods affect the body in the same way as diet sodas.
ReplyDeleteI do not consume diet sodas because I don't like the taste of sodas, and I have associated diet sodas with not being healthy since most of the people I know who consume diet sodas have chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus or hypertension. Pertaining to the blog post, I enjoyed how Paige related diet sodas to her everyday life. I would like to know if the subjects in the American Diabetic Association had projections toward having type 2 diabetes without consuming diet beverages. Like Emmy, I also want to know if studies have been conducted on other "diet" foods contain artificial sweeteners to determine the similarities and differences in the results compared to diet soda studies.
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