It’s Crucial That You Stop Drinking This “Healthy” Beverage

Dear Reader,

Slowly but surely, the public at large (perhaps because it is getting ever larger) has gotten the message. Soda sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup is a major driver of obesity and diabetes.

I’m delighted to see that sales are dropping.

Sweetened carbonated drinks dipped 1.5 percent during the four weeks leading up to Oct. 31 compared with the same period last year.

But I am even more heartened that another soda category — the “diet” sodas that theoretically keep you slim, trim, and healthy — are losing sales, too.

In fact, they are falling off (or perhaps “spilling over,” to avoid a mixed metaphor) a cliff!

The latest data from the Nielsen rating service show an 8.2 percent drop in the four weeks leading up to Oct. 31.

The biggest loser? Diet Pepsi, which slumped 11.4 percent.

I’m thrilled by this, because these drinks are truly insidious health destroyers.

On the heels of several studies linking diet soda and/or the common sweetener aspartame to cardiovascular disease (1), kidney function decline (2), and cancer (3) among various populations, a new study (4) has strongly linked them to bigger waistlines in senior citizens.

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio tracked more than 700 people.

The subjects were 65 or older when they started the study in 1992-96. The researchers followed them for about nine years.

The results were eye-opening. Over the course of the study, waistlines of those who:

• never drank diet soda increased 0.8 inches

• occasionally drank it increased 1.8 inches

• drank it daily increased by more than 3 inches.

There’s far more at stake here than fitting into last year’s Levi’s. Abdominal obesity is associated with a wide range of bad health outcomes including an increased risk of diabetes, several cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Seniors already bear an increased risk for these conditions. Gaining weight after age 65 just compounds the hazard.

Diet sodas appear to drive obesity in two ways:

• Their sweet taste triggers the body’s hormones to “expect” a quick, significant influx of calories. When those calories don’t arrive, hunger spikes, and overeating ensues

• A 2014 rodent study (5) suggested that artificial sweeteners actually alter gut microbes in ways that increase insulin resistance and obesity.

But warnings (like this one!) do seem to be catching on. Not only are diet soda sales tanking, but sales of bottled water and ready-to-drink coffee and tea are all up just as dramatically — by an average of 8.5 percent.

(I know, I know — the plastic bottles such drinks come in make mountains of trash. So filter and brew your own!)

Bottom line: No one, anywhere, should ever drink soda — and artificially sweetened soda is at least as dangerous to health as the sugared type. We have no evolutionary history with these synthetically sweetened drinks. They clearly foster metabolic chaos and, ultimately, disease.

The best drinks to consume day in and day out are water, green tea, and — if you don’t find it makes you jittery or sleepless — coffee.

I hope next year to report diet soda sales have plunged even further. Trends like this give me hope that the abysmal state of American health may indeed be ever-so-slowly turning around.

Brad Lemley,
Editor, Natural Health Solutions

Citations:

1. Kay C. Capsule commentary on Vyas et al., Diet drink consumption and the risk of cardiovascular events: a report from the Women’s Health Initiative. J Gen Intern Med. 2015
2. Lin J, Curhan GC. Associations of sugar and artificially sweetened soda with albuminuria and kidney function decline in women. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2011
3. Schernhammer ES, Bertrand KA, Birmann BM, Sampson L, Willett WC, Feskanich D. Consumption of artificial sweetener- and sugar-containing soda and risk of lymphoma and leukemia in men and women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012
4. Fowler SP, Williams K, Hazuda HP. Diet soda intake is associated with long-term increases in waist circumference in a biethnic cohort of older adults: the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2015
5. Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, et al. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. 2014