- Narrator: In the early 1960s
a new kind of beverage took the stage.
It wasn't a new shape or a color or flavor.
No, this was diet soda and it was awesome.
With fewer calories and less sugar
diet soda promised to be
a healthier alternative to regular soda.
But, like most promises in life
that sound too good to be true, it probably is.
Can you tell the difference
between a glass of regular and diet soda?
Turns out, neither can your body
and that's where the trouble starts.
Until recently, everything we ate
contained some amount of calories.
When we ate something sweet, for example,
the brain sent signals to our pancreas,
which started producing insulin
that stored the sugar molecules in our cells for energy.
So, when we drink diet soda,
the sweetness tricks our body into thinking it's real sugar
but when those energy packed calories don't arrive
the insulin has nothing to store.
Scientists think that repeatedly tricking our body this way
could explain why study after study
keeps finding the same thing.
That drinking diet soda
is associated with metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a mix of conditions
that includes increased blood pressure,
high blood sugar and weight gain
which can increase the risk of diabetes,
heart disease and stroke.
In fact, one study found that diet soda drinkers
had a higher risk of stroke and dementia
than regular soda drinkers.
And for another eight-year-long study, between 1979 and 1988
participants who started out at a normal weight
and drank an average of 21 diet beverages a week
faced double the risk of becoming overweight or obese
by the end of the study
compared to people who avoided diet beverages completely.
And while drinking diet soda with the meal may sound like
a tasty calorie free alternative to plain water,
the growing body of research is starting to find
that this may be the worse time to drink it
because the fake calories in the diet soda
could ultimately disrupt how many
of the real calories we metabolize,
potentially leaving excess calories behind
that we then store as fat.
Another issue could be the fact
that artificial sweeteners in diet sodas
can be 10s to 100s of times sweeter than sugar.
So when we taste it, our brains anticipate
more calories than what we give it.
It's like when you go to a party expecting loads of food
and you end up with a handful of veggies and vegan cheese.
You're left unsatisfied and hangry.
In the same way, artificial sweeteners
can leave our brains wanting more
which studies have shown leads to increased appetite
and potential weight gain in fruit flies, mice, and humans.
So if the reason you're drinking diet soda
is to drop a few pounds, maybe just stick to water.
Got any friends obsessed with diet soda?
Share this video with them and thanks for watching.