Doctors and nutritionists have been telling us for years to give up diet soda—and all the foreign chemicals contained in them. But for most Americans, we can’t stop drinking the stuff. But a recent article may finally give you reason enough to quit.
Here are eight things to look forward to when you put down the can:
- Migraines disappear and focus sharpens.
According to the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the chemicals that make up the artificial sweetener aspartame may alter brain chemicals, nerve signals, and the brain’s reward system, which leads to headaches, anxiety, and insomnia.
- Taste buds are more sensitive.
Artificial sweeteners in your diet soda tend to overwhelm your taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness (aspartame ranks 200 hundreds times sweeter than table sugar; and Splenda 600 times). So when you stop ingesting it, you may find that food has more flavor, you can better taste it’s subtleties and it’s more enjoyable.
- The scale finally goes the right way.
A recent 9-year study found older adults who drank diet soda continued to pack on belly fat. The study piggybacks on research that found each daily diet soda increases your chance of becoming obese in the next decade by 65%, and a study published in Diabetes Care found that drinking daily diet soft drinks was associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome—obesity, high blood-pressure, high triglycerides—which leads to heart disease and diabetes.
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- Bones strengthen.
One 2014 study found that each daily soda increased the chance of hip fracture by 14% for postmenopausal women. And another found that older women who drank cola had lower bone mineral density in their hips. The jury is still out on why soda has this effect, but the science pretty clearly suggests that a soda habit weakens your bones.
- Your attitude towards food changes.
Since diet sodas have no calories, people drinking them often feel it’s okay to indulge elsewhere. Plus, soda often accompanies unhealthy foods. So when you eliminate the soft drink, you also break the junk food habit.
- You handle booze better.
Fun fat: Diet soda gets you drunk faster. According to the American Journal of Medicine, when you mix it with alcohol, your stomach empties out faster than if you used regular soda, causing a drastic increase in blood alcohol concentrations. Your best bet for a mixer? Club soda, which is sugar- and calorie-free.
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- Fat storage and diabetes risk decreases.
Another study in Diabetes Care found that drinking two-thirds of a diet soda before eating primed the pancreas to release a lot of the fat-storing hormone insulin. When the pancreas is overworked from creating insulin to control blood-sugar levels, diabetes rears its ugly head.
- Kidney function improves.
Once your body no longer has to make sense of the unpronounceable ingredients in diet soda, your kidneys can get back to clearing toxins, stabilizing blood pressure, and absorbing minerals.
Curated article from Yahoo Health
