One of the most debated topics in health and fitness is surrounding diet drinks. As you have people who claim they are bad for your health with all sorts of health problems they cause. On the other end of the spectrum, some people say they are safe for people to consume. But it does leave some people confused as to whether they are good or bad.
They contain chemicals
Some people cite that because zero-calorie soft drinks contain chemicals. Because they are not natural that they must be bad for your health. I’m willing to bet if I showed you all the chemicals of for example banana, that you wouldn’t know what all the different chemicals are. The truth is anything from a chicken, banana and even water is all made up of chemicals. Its people assume food and drinks that are “natural” must be good for you and ones that are artificial or highly processed must be “bad”.
Does it trick your brain into storing fat?
Put simply it can’t trick your brain. Even if they could, you would still need to get calories from somewhere to hold on to body fat. Because something like a diet cola which is almost zero calories. You can’t gain weight or not lose weight from drinking fluids that contain next to no calories.
Do diet drinks cause cancer?
One of the main ingredients in diet drinks is aspartame. A claim that they can cause cancer because they have aspartame. So is this true? No, because the amount of aspartame in these drinks is small. Current evidence suggests that aspartame is safe for humans to consume. There is nothing to suggest that it can cause cancer.
Are regular soft drinks healthier?
I’m sure we have all heard someone whether they’re a friend, family member or work colleague. Say that they would rather have the regular soft drink because the diet version has to be worse because of the artificial sweeteners. So no, they aren’t better because regular versions have sugar which means they contain calories. This means when you’re trying to lose weight, you’re drinking some of your calories. This means that it can be easier to drink more calories than from food.
At worst diet drinks may cause poor dental health, the regular versions have the same problem. However, this is because they are acidic. So anything you drink that is not plain water may stain or affect your teeth. You can limit this by drinking from something like a straw. If you ensure you maintain good dental health by cleaning your teeth and attending dental check-ups you should be fine.
What I am not saying is to drink zero-calorie diet drinks instead of water. I probably wouldn’t recommend drinking them all the time. But you can have them some of the time when you feel you need something sweet and not plain water. Knowing that they are safe won’t cause you to gain weight or cause you to have health problems.
In summary, you can vary the drinks you have when you aim to stay hydrated. Without worrying about many of the claims from chemicals, tricking your brain or causing cancer. While being aware that drinking fluids that contain next to no calories may help us to control our calorie intake.
