# diet soda
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 17, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634 "2004-10-17T05:37:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@King\_Friday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_Friday)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/1 "2004-10-17T05:37:18Z")
I drink a considerable amount of diet soda daily and was wondering what negative effects it can have on my health. I stick to caffeine free most of the time.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/2 "2004-10-17T05:51:19Z")
According to a chart on my Dentist’s wall, most soda’s (regular and diet) are highly acidic, and therefore more damaging to your teeth. The chart lists various brand names of soda, ranked by their acidity. And it makes it quite clear that water (neutral pH) is the best thing for you to be drinking to satisfy your thirst.
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### Author:  [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/3 "2004-10-17T08:39:24Z")
There was another thread about this [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=255169&highlight=soda).
Diet sodas are actually less acidic than regular ones. I can’t find the page I used for pH data for the other thread, but generally diet Coke has a pH around 3.5 and classic Coke is around 2.5. Remember that pH is logarithmic, so something with pH 2.5 is ten times more acidic than something with pH 3.5. The really dangerous acid that you would never touch that was almost certainly on your dentist’s wall chart was probably 100 times or so stronger than the most acidic drink. Also, it’s not fair to only list sodas, because fruit juices are very similar in pH to regular sodas. There’s a list of pHs for various household items [here](http://biology.clc.uc.edu/scripts/pHResl.pl).
Be really, really careful about searching the Web for information about potential health hazards posed by diet soda. A huge number of people claim, with no scientific basis to their beliefs, that aspartame is incredibly dangerous and causes all kinds of life-ruining diseases. Many of these people have websites and many of their websites have high Google rankings. Look for an article on a reputable site, and avoid the scare sites. Aspartame, which is derived from amino acids like those found in all proteins, has been widely tested and shown to be safe. It is true that aspartame generates a negligible amount of methanol when it’s metabolized, but that amount is small compared to the amount of methanol you consume from other sources, and much less than the toxic amount.
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### Author:  [@jester21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jester21)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/4 "2004-10-17T10:47:20Z")
i’ve been told from various sources over the years, including my health class in college…
That Diet sodas, main ingrediate NutraSweet specificly, cause among other things:
Brain Tumors, memory loss and cancers of various sorts.
the short lived fad Olestra (fat substitue) , caused uncontrollable bowel movements in a large portion of people who ate it.
And I believe that the newest Sugar Substitue fad, Splenda is similar to Olestra… but I havn’t heard anything specificly.
Granted, i’m too lazy to look up any legit sources to back any of this up, but it’s what i’ve heard, for what it’s worth.
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### Author:  [@jester21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jester21)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/5 "2004-10-17T11:05:32Z")
meant to add in there:
I’ll stick to regular soda, where I know the drawbacks (tooth decay and weight gain)…
as opposed to consuming gallons of man-made artificial chemicals with unknown properties and unknown health effects that the manufactures will NEVER tell you if there are known health hazards (i.e. Cigarettes).
but that’s my opinion. Exercise can take care of the pounds and the dentist is happy to take my money :smack:
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### Author:  [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/6 "2004-10-17T11:15:01Z")
[This article](http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7469/755) discusses the effects of aspartame on health and says, in part:
> [@](#):
>
> Evidence does not support links between aspartame and cancer, hair loss, depression, dementia, behavioural disturbances, or any of the other conditions appearing in websites
I tried to round up an article about cavities and the acid in soda, but I’m not hitting the right PubMed keywords, and I have to go do laundry. I’ll look some more later.
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### Author:  [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/7 "2004-10-17T11:18:48Z")
If you learned that in a college course, it was the opinion of your professor and should have been noted as such. It may be possible that those things are caused by large doses of aspartame in rats, but there is relatively little evidence that aspartame specifically ‘causes’ cancer. BTW, this would mean that there was a statistically significant difference in the incidence of cancer between people who consumed aspartame and an otherwise similar group of people who did not. It would be something like a 1 in 2800 chance of getting a certain cancer instead of a 1 in 3000 chance, **not** a 100% chance.
Here are some literature citations:
Ann Oncol. 2004 Oct;15(10):1460-5 – 1.3 times greater rate of cancer in people who used more than 1.7 grams of unspecified artificial sweeteners per day
Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2002 Apr;35(2 Pt 2):S1-93. – Concludes that aspartame is safe, but it’s submitted by researchs with the NutraSweet company.
J Toxicol Sci. 1998 Jul;23 Suppl 2:165-72 – Aspartame prevents cancers caused by a certain toxin found in many foods
Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2004 May;78(1):121-7. – Aspartame causes memory loss in rats at doses equivalent to 17.5 grams per day for several years. (Drinks contain 0.1-0.2 grams on average per can.)
I found relatively few real citations and many didn’t have abstracts for some reason. The widespread argument seems to be that aspartame causes methanol or formaldehyde poisoning. But many foods contain methanol, and the amount of methanol you would get even from a huge intake of aspartame is not enough to cause problems. What’s happening is that people learn that aspartame ‘breaks down in your body’ to something which they know is toxic, then assume that it must be ‘poisonous’ and that is necessary to rid their diets (and their children’s!) of the ‘toxin’. The purported risk is easy enough to understand. If aspartame really is carcinogenic, it’s not because of the methanol.
**Splenda and Olestra** : Olestra is a molecule of sucrose (table sugar) with six, seven, or eight fatty acids attached (as esters at hydroxyl groups). The result is a molecule which resembles fats in cooking, and tastes like fat, but that cannot be digested by the body. The potential side effect of a fat that cannot be digested by the body should be obvious.
Splenda, or sucralose, is also a modified form of sucrose. To make Splenda, three of the OH groups in sugar are replaced with chlorine. This also makes it impossible for your body to digest it. The theory is the same as with Olestra – a modified sugar that can’t be digested. But Splenda has been tested for over 20 years and is generally found to be safe. Regarding the embarassing side effect Olestra has, Splenda won’t do that. It’s not an oily substance like Olestra – it’s a powder. There are other sugars that your body can’t digest, which is what dietary fiber is. So the side effect won’t occur.
However, the Splenda commercials with the ‘roses are red’ poem, and the frequent ‘Splenda is made from sugar’ claim (which is true) led me to this:
_Roses are red,
Cacti are green,
Splenda is sugar,
That’s mixed with chlorine._
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### Author:  [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/8 "2004-10-17T19:54:14Z")
My GP M.D. has advised me that the carbonation in soft drinks can exacerbate an elnlarged prostate condition.
It also gives one gas, both ends. 😃
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### Author:  [@qubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qubed)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/9 "2004-10-17T20:47:24Z")
> [@jester21](#):
>
> I’ll stick to regular soda…as opposed to consuming gallons of man-made artificial chemicals with unknown properties and unknown health effects that the manufactures will NEVER tell you if there are known health hazards (i.e. Cigarettes).
Umm, it’s not as if regular soda doesn’t have man-made artificial chemicals too. Sure, the ingredients say “natural flavors,” but all that means is that it has to come from natural sources. It’s as heavily processing and developed as the artifical sweeteners in diet soda. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that regular soda is better than diet soda because it doesn’t have one particular chemical in it.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/10 "2004-10-17T20:55:33Z")
Diet sodas are far, far, **far** less likely to cause health damage than regular sodas.
QtM, MD
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### Author:  [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/11 "2004-10-17T21:03:47Z")
People who look for bad effects from diet drinks would probably like to find something wrong with skim milk. They don’t like it and so it must be bad for you, which is contrary to the real world that certainly seems to go by the opposite rule that “if it tastes good it is bad for you.” 😉
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/12 "2004-10-17T21:43:50Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> According to a chart on my Dentist’s wall, most soda’s (regular and diet) are highly acidic, and therefore more damaging to your teeth. The chart lists various brand names of soda, ranked by their acidity. And it makes it quite clear that water (neutral pH) is the best thing for you to be drinking to satisfy your thirst.
So are citric juices
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/13 "2004-10-17T23:09:58Z")
Diet sodas are -in general- safer than sugar sodas. OTOH, they are hardly “health food”.
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### Author:  [@gtbiehle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gtbiehle)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/14 "2004-10-17T23:38:19Z")
Sorry I won’t be able to quote the article, but this last month’s Scientific American reported a study in which some laboratory animals were given drinks containing aspartame. Compared to “controls” who were given drinks with sugar, the “diet” lab animals later consumed more food. The interpretation was that the aspartame confused the body’s expectation between sweet taste and the actual receipt of sugar. Thus when the diet lab animals could get sugar, they ate and ate and ate.
Now, IMHO, everything is okay in moderation, except mind-altering drugs that can ruin your life.
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/15 "2004-10-17T23:49:28Z")
I posted [this ultra-spiffy article](http://www.doctorspiller.com/Decay.htm) in another thread on a similar subject. Essentially, the acids in diet sodas are not dangerous to your teeth unless you bathe your teeth in them constantly; being highly water-soluble, they are washed away by saliva shortly after drinking. Whereas the sugar in regular soda can and does cause major tooth damage long after you finish drinking it.
And it even addresses the myth of aspartame toxicity and discusses other artificial sweeteners. Doctor Spiller is my hero.
NOTE: This should not be taken to mean that [**Nametag** is not my hero anymore](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4210031#post4210031). I can have more than one hero, legally!
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### Author:  [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-soda/269634/16 "2004-10-18T11:36:13Z")
Aspartame can cause mental problems similar to dyslexia. So if the stuff you’re reading starts to look like a jblmude emss, fepapo farlria atuayuiral aioryea immediately!