14 DAY TRIAL // Diet sodas are marketed as a somewhat healthier and more waistline-friendly alternative to regular, sugar-stuffed beverages. As it turns out, this is not the case. Au contraire, a new study claims that diet sodas actually make people put on weight.
Writing in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, researcher Sharon Fowler at the University of Texas Health Science Center and colleagues detail how, while monitoring several hundred individuals over nearly a decade, they found that such beverages up the risk of abdominal obesity.
Plainly put, diet sodas are not our friends. Well, not if we aren't big fans of love handles. Thus, although they do not contain sugar and are instead made with artificial sweeteners, they cause people to put on belly fat and, in doing so, make guys and gals more vulnerable to all sorts of health trouble.
How diet sodas make waistline expand
As part of their investigation into how diet sodas affect body weight, specialist Sharon Fowler and fellow researchers monitored a total of 749 Mexican- and European-Americans over a period of time of 9.4 years. The focus was on their dietary habits and their weight.
The study participants, age 65 or older at the beginning of the study, were first questioned about how much diet soda they consumed and had their waistline measured between 1992 and 1996. Follow-ups were carried out in 2000-2001, 2001-2003, and 2003-2004.
The investigation, dubbed the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA) study, revealed a link between diet soda intake and abdominal obesity. Specifically, it is said that regular diet soda consumers added 3.16 inches (8 centimeters) to their waistline during the monitoring period.
By comparison, occasional consumers and the study participants who did not drink any diet soda while the investigation was ongoing witnessed their waistline gaining merely 1.83 inches (a little over 4 centimeters) and 0.80 inches (2 centimeters), respectively.
Abdominal obesity is a serious health threat
Scientist Sharon Fowler and colleagues warn that people who develop abdominal obesity are at a greater risk of health trouble such as metabolic syndrome, a condition that correlates with high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels, and cardiovascular disease.
“The study shows that increasing diet soda intake was associated with escalating abdominal obesity, which may increase cardiometabolic risk in older adults. The burden of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, along with healthcare costs, is great in the ever-increasing senior population,” said Sharon Fowler.
In light of their findings, the specialists recommend that people who are in the habit of consuming diet soda on a daily basis try to cut back, maybe even give up on such beverages altogether. People over the age of 65 should especially try to reduce their diet soda intake.