Are Diet Drinks Bad For You? What do they do to Your Body?

At first you may be led to believe that diet soft drinks are a healthier alternative to those containing sugar.

You are told that it saves you the 140-plus calories that are found in a sugary soft drink. So it well may seem a logical choice.

However you are being fooled, this is a combined chemical cocktail with a double sword that will lead to disaster.

You can still satisfy your urge for something sweet, whilst cutting back on your calorie intake.

However your substitute is filled with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose at chemical cocktail in itself.

But wait there's more to this chemical cocktail than you are led to believe.

Let's take a look at the affects these drinks have on your Body:

Puts your Body into a Confused State!

Artificial sweeteners have more intense flavour than real sugar. Therefore as you drink more of this drink your senses become dull from the natural foods that have healthy fructose such as fruit, according to Brook Alpert, RD, author of "The Sugar Detox" book.

What is even more troubling, is that these sugar replacements have been shown to have the same detrimental effects on the body as does sugar. Artificial sweeteners are known to trigger insulin, sending your body into fat storage mode and therefore leading to weight gain.

How it Leads to Weight Gain & Not Weight Loss!

Diet soft is supposedly calorie-free, however don't be fooled it will not necessarily help you to lose weight. Researchers have found that over the course of about a decade, people who have been drinking diet soft drinks, had a 70% greater increase in waist circumference compared with non-drinkers.

Not to mention that people consuming two or more of these soft drinks per day gained a hefty 500% waistline increase.

What Happens is that the artificial sweeteners add confusion the body's metabolic processes. One of the reasons why artificial sweeteners do not help you lose weight relates to the fact that your body is not fooled by sweet taste without accompanying calories.

When you eat something sweet, your brain releases dopamine, which activates your brain's reward center. The appetite-regulating hormone leptin is also released, which eventually informs your brain that you are "full" once a certain amount of calories have been ingested.

However, when you consume something that tastes sweet but doesn't contain any calories, your brain's pleasure pathway still gets activated by the sweet taste, but there's nothing to deactivate it, since the calories never arrive.

Artificial sweeteners basically trick your body into thinking that it's going to receive sugar (calories), but when the sugar doesn't come, your body continues to signal that it needs more, which results in carb cravings.

Besides worsening insulin sensitivity and promoting weight gain, aspartame and other artificial sweeteners also promote other health problems associated with excessive sugar consumption, including:
◦Cardiovascular disease and stroke
◦Alzheimer's disease. While poor diet is a major driver of Alzheimer's in general (the primary culprits being sugar/fructose and grains, especially gluten), the key mechanism of harm here appears to be methanol toxicity—a much-ignored problem associated with aspartame in particular.
◦Cancer research has found that there is increased evidence of cancer due to the toxic effect of these artificial sweeteners.

What You Can Do!
•Eliminate the hidden sugars from your diet. That is highly processed foods whether that be packet or canned meals. Lollies, cakes, biscuits, any soft drinks and bottled fruit juices.
•Reduce Sugar Cravings by developing a daily exercise habit of walking for at least 30 minutes, eat whole fresh foods - this includes vegetables, meat, chicken and fish that you cook yourself. Eat regularly every 2 - 2 1/2 hours - this could be an apple, banana, pear, some rockmelon: A handful of Roasted almonds: A small tub or organic yogurt. Drinking organic plunger black coffee with no sugar or sugar substitutes: 1 - 2 cups per day. Preferably in the morning.
•Increase your intake of filtered water - 8 glasses minimum per day. Add a slice or two of lemon for some variety.
•Don't have anything that says it is Diabetic friendly, check out products that are labelled sugar free as these may still have artificial sweeteners.
•Think Positively about YOU: You and Your Health are worth the effort.

Learn More about the Harmful Effects of Sugar and an Easy to Follow Eating Plan

Empowering You to Optimal Health Julie Doherty N.D

Resources:
•http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAdditivesIngredients/ucm397725.htm
•http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/03/30/artificial-sweeteners-cause-cancer.aspx
•http://www.daytonent.com/articles/neotame.asp
•http://gaia-health.com/natural-health/food/neotame-new-neurotoxic-sweetener-fda-says-no-label-needed-not-even-organics/
•http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/artificial-sweeteners-fact-sheet#q2
•http://www.diabetes.co.uk/sweeteners/saccharin.html
•http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/18/health/where-do-we-stand-artificial-sweeteners/
•http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat