Any umber of health books advocate drinking 64 oz. of water a day. Exercise magazines and the like advocate fluid replacement during and after vigorous exercise, but turn up their noses at one of my favorite forms of fluid – diet soft drinks. Since diet drinks are really nothing but flavored, colored, carbonated water anyway, what gives?
If you are talking about Diet Coke, it has caffine which is a diuretic. Caffine-free diet drinks might make a suitable substitute for water.
Think of it in terms of althletes - they drink that gator stuff to replace lost body fluids in the correct proportion. You might not be sweating like a basketball player during the day but diet drinks or any soda drinks are a match for your body fluids.
Something in the soda - phosphates? need calcuim to get processed out of your body so if you are taking in more than one soda per day you are leeching out calcium.
I can’t remember what all else is in soda but we get enough sodium and potassium and other salts in our everyday diets to keep us functioning nicely. Water helps keep your salts in balance, soda should not.
I’ve got a WAG that I thought of a few years ago, but I’ve got no proof: the sweet taste of soda causes the body to release insulin into the bloodstream to deal with all the sugar it thinks it’s going to have to process. If there really is sugar, no major problem. But if there’s no sugar, the insulin has nothing to do but shunt what little glucose you already have out of the bloodstream. Big problem.
Chances are that if this WAG is correct, the caffeine in soda will mask the effect, so you may not associate your symptoms (if you have any) with the soda. I can only imagine the long-term effects of the phenomenon, but I can’t imagine they could be good.
Besides, diet soda tastes nasty.
['I’ve got a WAG that I thought of a few years ago, but I’ve got no proof: the sweet taste of soda causes the body to release insulin into the bloodstream to deal with all the sugar it thinks it’s going to have to process. If there really is sugar, no major problem. But if there’s no sugar, the insulin has nothing to do but shunt what little glucose you already have out of the bloodstream. Big problem. ]
this is a problem for low carb dieters, it fools you body into thinking you are taking in sugar and can cause sugar cravings. also there are questions as to the long term health effects of nutrasweet - try RC and diet rite- they use splenda, I think dietrite uses a mixture of 2 sweetners. I feel splenda is better for you then nutrasweet and taste better - but that is just my opinion
My understand of how the body works (and I may definitely be wrong, since biology was never my strong point) is that the body requires water. If the water is “mixed” (for lack of a better term) with a lot of things, such as in diet coke, it is much harder for the body to process the water that it needs.
Not to mention that counteractive effects of caffiene, etc.
If I read your question correctly, you are assuming that because health magazines turn up their noses (what a strange metaphor) at diet drinks that necessarily means that the drinks are bad. When it comes to the single issue of water replacement, diet drinks are, as you suggested, the equivalent of water. They are about 99% water. Yes, the diuretic effect of caffeine may to some extent mitigate the benefits, but that wasn’t your question. But I believe that we make some dangerous moves when we take the pronouncements of writers in health (or other, for that matter) magazines as gospel. The “health” movement has its virtues. Some diets clearly pose higher risks than others for certain conditions. But by and large, the health business is just that - a business - which has taken on cult proportions in many parts of society. Witness the many claims such as “sugar is bad for you.” Those types of simplistic, and essentially wrong, statements are evidence of the scientific illiteracy that is wide spread in our society, and it is upon those types of beliefs that the industry makes enormous profits. Ignorance is terribly expensive. (The brain cannot function withOUT sugar, for instance). In the academic field of misconception research, for example, …ah, what the hell - I see I’m starting on a tangent. Ok, that’s it.
]. Ignorance is terribly expensive. (The brain cannot function withOUT sugar, for instance).]
you are leaving out critically important info - at least as expensive - if you took in no sugar and no carbs - your body will make more then enough for your brain.
- so YES you brain cant function w/o sugar (glucose) but your brain can function fine without taking in any sugar.
I find it curious that you left this out
I know a little bit about how insulin works in the body:
Uh…I really don’t think “sweet tasting” non-calorific items will cause an insulin release. Your body is a little bit smarter than that. My MD SO also agrees that she does not think this would ever happen, given how the insulin release mechanism is currently understood to function by medical science. I can’t find any medical citations for this effect - can you provide? It might be interesting to have a look.
And I, too, have been concerned about long-term effects of artificial sweeteners. Thus far, there has been no real proof of any problems with the “big two”. Just to be safe, I would stick to saccharine - that’s right, saccharine. It’s been in use for a VERY long time, and due to the prior (not present) fears of bladder cancer it has undergone extreme scrutiny as to it’s health effects.
On a related note, anyone else here ever take a Glucagon shot? You take it (or it is given to you, most likely case) when you are a diabeteic who has taken too much insulin, or not had enough calories, and the ol’ blood sugar goes to 0 and you start speaking with your dead grandpa who urges you to “come into the light”. It forces your liver to release it’s stores of glucose and will rapidly raise your blood sugar. From how much it raises it and how quickly, I’d say (complete WAG) that it releases about as much as 1000 calories worth, cause to bring it back down afterwards takes about that much worth of insulin.
If you are a person who has a defective liver, has been very undernourished or over-exercised, or has been a diabetic who has suffered several recent insulin reactions, your liver may have very little glucose to release. This brings forth the “oh shit, I really AM going to die this time” reaction in the patient (happened to me once - very scary).
K2dave - not to put too fine a point on it, but sugar IS a carb. Yes, the body can catabolize glucose from stored fat and even from stored protein. That wasn’t my point, as you know. The conversation is supposed to be constructive. I said that people say a lot of things that are simplistic and not even true. “sugar is bad for you,” is one of those things. Reading is a matter of comprehension, not simply decoding.
Well, I did say it was a WAG and that I had no proof. However, it appears as if I’m not the only one to be making WAGs along these general lines. None of the below sources exactly matches my WAG that it’s the sweet taste itself that triggers insulin release. A sweet taste alone can stimulate the release of other hormones, such as endorphins, so my WAG isn’t not totally unreasonable. Disclaimer: Some of the information below may be based on good evidence, some may not.
source: http://www.medicinecabinet.co.uk/feature_arch/v2i1_feat.htm
Christine Lydon, MD, says essentially the same thing at http://aspartamekills.com/lydon.htm
More bad news for aspertame users
There’s also the matter of what effect the carbonation has, a matter which I am not too well informed on.
I’ve read these things before for many years now, and while interesting they are not exactly unbiased sources, nor is their research all that sound when you start checking facts.
It is true that a great many more people DO suffer bad side effects from aspartame use, however I think most studies seem to term it an “all or nothing effect”. That is, either you are susceptable to it (in which case you should stick to saccharine) or you aren’t.
For a sample size of one+ - neither I nor any of my friends notice any difference in diabetic control when taking or abstaining from aspartame (which I often do when in Europe). But given that soooo many things can screw up your control, I wouldn’t doubt that something small could do it. I mean, you wake up 30 minutes later in the morning, or 30 minutes earlier, and you have to take a different size shot.
It’s pretty easy BTW to tell an insulin reaction from any other type of “reaction” that a diabetic might have. But then again, speaking from my SO’s experience, an alarmingly large number of diabetics are what she would consider “completely out of control”. In fact, probabaly about 80% of the diabetics that she sees for just regular checkups are so out of control that they could be admitted to the hospital (hemoglobin A1c’s of 16-25). My worst one was 6.5, where a “normal” person, IIRC, is about 5.0.
Along these lines, my doctor told me that diet soda counted as a glass of water, but iced tea didn’t. Now I know that tea has a slight diuretic effect, but really it seems its just a glass of slightly flavored water. (I don’t take sugar.) Go figure.
When you drink a carbonated beverage you also get some carbonic acid. The carbonic acid helps erase the good the the production and removal of lactic acid that you body makes with exercise. (BTW the lactic acid is why you get the “burn” when you are working out) That is why you don’t want to drink carbonated beverages when working out. The best thing is something with protein, your muscles will absord it better within an hour of working out.
But any liquid is better than no liquid at all.
[K2dave - not to put too fine a point on it, but sugar IS a carb. Yes, the body can catabolize glucose from stored fat and even from stored protein]
yes, CC I know that sugar is a carb, I was stating both to make a point, an another point you neglect that your body will 1st make glucose out of dietary protein, once glycogen stores and exhausted - the process is called something like gluconugensis - I know it is not the exact word but close. Only as a last resort does your body breakdown itself for glucose.
> this is a problem for low carb dieters, it fools you body into thinking you are taking in sugar and can cause sugar cravings.
Hmmm… I lost 30 lbs on one of those & drank quite a bit of diet coke in the process. No sugar cravings for me- what really makes you crave sugar is eating sugar! Seriously- try eating half a donut, or one small cookie. When that hits your system, you’ll want to eat more sugar.
BTW the diet book I used said to count the diet drinks toward the water minimum, but I probably drink at least their recommended amount of plain water.
8 glasses of water every day = urban legend
[Hmmm… I lost 30 lbs on one of those & drank quite a bit of diet coke in the process. No sugar cravings for me- what really makes you crave sugar is eating sugar! Seriously- try eating half a donut, or one small cookie. When that hits your system, you’ll want to eat more sugar.
BTW the diet book I used said to count the diet drinks toward the water minimum, but I probably drink at least their recommended amount of plain water.]
Diet soda doesn’t seem to be a problem with many low carb dieters, but it does cause some to stop loosing weight. I have heard of counting diet soda tws. water min and heard of being allowed to drink it as long as you meet your min. water.
eating a donut will certanlly put a dent in your diet- probally the low fat type too