The results were so dramatic that the American researchers advise that people ditch their diet drinks and use water to quench their thirst instead.
Those who cannot bear to give up the sugar rush may be better off drinking normal full-sugar fizzy drinks.Professor Helen Hazuda, of the University of Texas’s health science centre, said diet sodas and artificial sweeteners may foster a sweet tooth, distort appetite and even damage key brain cells. As a result, treating them as healthy alternatives may be ‘ill advised’ The professor, who no longer drinks diet colas and lemonades, said: ‘They may be free of calories but not of consequences.’ Overall, those who favored diet drinks saw their waists expand 70 per cent faster.
But ‘frequent users’ – defined as those who drink two or more cans a day – saw a 500 per cent greater increase in girth, the American Diabetes Association conference heard.Significantly, the results still stood even when other factors such as exercise, social class, education and smoking were taken into account. With pot bellies being blamed for ills from heart disease to diabetes and cancer, the researchers said: ‘These results suggest that amidst the national drive to reduce chronic consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, policies that would promote the consumption of diet soft drinks may have unintended deleterious side-effects.’ Read on at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2009055/Why-guzzling-diet-drink-make-fatter--trigger-appetite.html
Those who cannot bear to give up the sugar rush may be better off drinking normal full-sugar fizzy drinks.Professor Helen Hazuda, of the University of Texas’s health science centre, said diet sodas and artificial sweeteners may foster a sweet tooth, distort appetite and even damage key brain cells. As a result, treating them as healthy alternatives may be ‘ill advised’ The professor, who no longer drinks diet colas and lemonades, said: ‘They may be free of calories but not of consequences.’ Overall, those who favored diet drinks saw their waists expand 70 per cent faster.
But ‘frequent users’ – defined as those who drink two or more cans a day – saw a 500 per cent greater increase in girth, the American Diabetes Association conference heard.Significantly, the results still stood even when other factors such as exercise, social class, education and smoking were taken into account. With pot bellies being blamed for ills from heart disease to diabetes and cancer, the researchers said: ‘These results suggest that amidst the national drive to reduce chronic consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, policies that would promote the consumption of diet soft drinks may have unintended deleterious side-effects.’ Read on at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2009055/Why-guzzling-diet-drink-make-fatter--trigger-appetite.html
