i’m wondering what the prevailing informed opinion is on diet soda . . .
can it be used to hydrate ? any negative catabolic effects ?
i know it changes the Ph balance in your mouth and it may not be altogether friendly for dental hygiene for that reason mostly.
but i don’t drink the stuff often. usually only on weekends (sat and/or sun) at the movies. so what does everyone think ? thanks.
Search engine use you must…
From a health standpoint it just makes sense to go with water. That being said, if you really need it, having it occasionally won’t be the thing that kills you.
Just realize that the high phosphorous content can tend to throw our calcium to phosphorous ratios out of whack, possibly worsening bone density.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Search engine use you must…[/quote]
IS that Yoda or Whitman?
I have my opinions about diet soda,but one won’t kill you.However,don’t drink too much.The sodium in it can really bloat you,lol.
I was going for Yoda.
This is discussed quite often… with forays into sweeteners and Mercola and on and on and on.
Here’s a perspective for ya
A billboard right outside Dallas that has five cupcakes equaling one diet Dr. Pepper. God damn, I wish I had my camera when I saw that.
Whenever I can choose, I drink a natural juice or green tea. Plain water works pretty well too.
Soda is something that I drink only when I don’t have a choice, which happens very rarely.
Natural Juice? I’d rather drink diet soft drink (that’s right soft drink ya yankies) than juice.
Just because the sugar comes from oranges doesn’t make it any less sugary. It’s like taking fruit and turning it into candy.
[quote]Cthulhu wrote:
I have my opinions about diet soda,but one won’t kill you.However,don’t drink too much.The sodium in it can really bloat you,lol.[/quote]
You’d need to drink a ton of diet soda or be on a severely sodium restricted diet to get bloated from them.
Unless you’re getting ready for a photo shoot or bodybuilding competition, there’s really no reason to be overly concerned with sodium intake.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
That being said, if you really need it, having it occasionally won’t be the thing that kills you.[/quote]
Why would anyone “need” soda; diet or not?
[quote]jd_dd wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
That being said, if you really need it, having it occasionally won’t be the thing that kills you.
Why would anyone “need” soda; diet or not?
[/quote]
Because some people feel they “need” it. I guess I used the wrong word.
For example, I like to have a Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked sometimes, and anyone that says I can’t have it, that advice will just go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes we just have to find the balance in life that makes us happy.
To tell someone they can never have soda when they enjoy it, well I’d rather them have a diet than a regular.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
To tell someone they can never have soda when they enjoy it, well I’d rather them have a diet than a regular.[/quote]
I can understand that. Just that using a definitive word like “need” threw me off, but I get what you’re saying.
I’d avoid it based on aspartame alone. Aspartame can fuck with your brain and that’s a bad thing.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Search engine use you must…[/quote]
the search engine button is disabled in my browser. i dont know why. maybe an applet bug.
[quote]jacross wrote:
Natural Juice? I’d rather drink diet soft drink (that’s right soft drink ya yankies) than juice.
Just because the sugar comes from oranges doesn’t make it any less sugary. It’s like taking fruit and turning it into candy.[/quote]
the fruit sugar is besides the point in eating an orange or drinking orange juice.
i think there are benefits to eating sugar or taking in a vitamin from a natural source than from a processed or an artifical one.
[quote]djoh615893 wrote:
Here’s a perspective for ya
A billboard right outside Dallas that has five cupcakes equaling one diet Dr. Pepper. God damn, I wish I had my camera when I saw that.[/quote]
how is that possible when the sugar has been replaced in diet soda ? five cupcakes , on their sugar content only, would be around 100 calories, whereas a diet soda has near zero calories.
the ad may have been a parody or something.
[quote]Cthulhu wrote:
I have my opinions about diet soda,but one won’t kill you.However,don’t drink too much.The sodium in it can really bloat you,lol.[/quote]
yes, i do feel a bit bloated afterwards. the resulting flab is very disconcerting.
i have a thin frame and any new weight will usually show as flab because i am not very productive managing and converting the calories into muscle or sweating them away. its extremely difficult for me to find the right balance. so its apropo that i worry about the effects of a zero calorie drink.
1’m 6 ft and weigh 210-215, but i certainly dont look it. i wonder where all the weight is. ’
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
From a health standpoint it just makes sense to go with water. That being said, if you really need it, having it occasionally won’t be the thing that kills you.
Just realize that the high phosphorous content can tend to throw our calcium to phosphorous ratios out of whack, possibly worsening bone density.[/quote]
this weekend i managed to go with water at the movies and felt better about the moral victory. hopefully my body will show the added benefits over time.
but does diet soda hydrate as well as water ?
basically does any carbonated water provide the same benefits as tap or spring water ?
I actually don’t know where the issue of sodium comes from considering that there is only some 16 mg of sodium per 8 ounces of diet soda (Coke/Pepsi).
And when you compare this to the 590 mg of sodium in half a cup of low-fat cottage cheese…that pretty much negligable.
As for hydration, the only concern would be for the brown drinks that contain caffeine. However, there is no evidence that consumming caffeinated beverages has a negative effect on water balance.
Caffeine does not have a sufficient diuretic effect to offset the amount of fluid that is taken in, therefore water balacne is influenced by other more powerful factors, such as ADH, Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone pathway and other more subtle and less known factors.
So while there is a significant amount of controversy surrounding diet colas/sodas, there is not a shread of evidence that show negative impact at this point, after a couple of decades and too much wasted money on toxicology studies that keep showing nothing of significance (unless you have Phenylketonuria and if you can type on your keybord, that means you already know you should avoid aspartame, some 1/10 000 suffer from this inborn metabolic disorder).
So yeah, you can drink as much as you like.
Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2004 Aug;14(4):419-29. Related Articles, Links
Rehydration with a caffeinated beverage during the nonexercise periods of 3 consecutive days of 2-a-day practices.
Fiala KA, Casa DJ, Roti MW.
Department of Kinesiology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of rehydration with a caffeinated beverage during nonexercise periods on hydration status throughout consecutive practices in the heat. Ten (7 women, 3 men) partially heat- acclimated athletes (age 24 +/-1y, body fat 19.2 +/- 2 %, weight 68.4 +/- 4.0 kg, height 170 +/- 3 cm) completed 3 successive days of 2-a-day practices (2 h/practice, 4 h/d) in mild heat (WBGT = 23 C). The 2 trials (double-blind, random, cross-over design) included; 1) caffeine (CAF) rehydrated with Coca-Cola and 2) caffeine-free (CF) rehydrated with Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola. Urine and psychological measures were determined before and after each 2-h practice. A significant difference was found for urine color for the post-AM time point, F = 5.526, P = 0.031. No differences were found among other variables (P > 0.05).
In summary, there is little evidence to suggest that the use of beverages containing caffeine during nonexercise might hinder hydration status.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2001 Sep;74(3):343-7. Related Articles, Links
Carbonated beverages and urinary calcium excretion.
Heaney RP, Rafferty K.
Creighton University Osteoporosis Research Center, Omaha, NE 68131, USA. rheaney@creighton.edu
BACKGROUND: Intake of carbonated beverages has been associated with increased fracture risk in observational studies. The usual explanation given is that one or more of the beverage constituents increase urinary calcium. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the short-term effects on urinary calcium excretion of carbonated beverages of various compositions. DESIGN: An incomplete random block design was used to study 20-40-y-old women who customarily consumed > or =680 mL carbonated beverages daily. Four carbonated beverages were tested: 2 with caffeine and 2 without. Two contained phosphoric acid as the acidulant and 2 contained citric acid. The study included one neutral control (water) and one positive control (skim or chocolate milk). Serving size was 567 mL for the carbonated beverages and water and 340 mL for the milks. Beverages were consumed with a light breakfast after an overnight fast; no other foods were ingested until urine collection was complete. pH, titratable and total acidity, sodium, creatinine, and calcium were measured in 2-h (morning) fasting and 5-h postbeverage urine specimens. RESULTS: Relative to water, urinary calcium rose significantly only with the milks and the 2 caffeine-containing beverages. The excess calciuria was approximately 0.25 mmol, about the same as previously reported for caffeine alone. Phosphoric acid without caffeine produced no excess calciuria; nor did it augment the calciuria of caffeine. CONCLUSIONS: The excess calciuria associated with consumption of carbonated beverages is confined to caffeinated beverages. Acidulant type has no acute effect.
Because the caffeine effect is known to be compensated for by reduced calciuria later in the day, we conclude that the net effect of carbonated beverage constituents on calcium economy is negligible. The skeletal effects of carbonated beverage consumption are likely due primarily to milk displacement.
AlexH