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Diet or regular? While some people choose based on taste, others
consider which kind is healthier.
And which kind, exactly, is that?
Recently, several people in the Times have suggested that diet sodas
are worse because they contains aspartame, a sugar substitute that may
be bad for your health.
But have we considered how bad the alternative is? Recent findings of a
study of over 50,000 women show that the real sugar used in non-diet
sodas may be more dangerous in the long run than the sugar substitute
used in diet sodas.
The decade-long study compared women who drank one or more sugary soft
drinks a day with those who drank them less than once a month.
The women who drank the sugary soft drinks were not only more likely to
gain weight, but they were also 83% more likely to develop Type-II
diabetes. That means that drinking sugary soft drinks daily almost
doubled their chances of getting diabetes, which can cause blindness
and even death.
On the other hand, drinking diet soda did not appear to significantly
raise the chance of diabetes.
Why the difference? Sugary soft drinks, as opposed to diet soft drinks,
contain lots of calories and big amounts of high fructose corn syrup
(sugar). Both these things contribute to obesity, which is a leading
cause of diabetes.
But don't be fooled into thinking this means you can drink diet sodas
conscience-free. No matter what the type, you can be pretty sure that
any soda you drink is completely lacking in the important vitamins and
calcium you need to be healthy. This may not seem important now, but
having a poor diet as a kid can set you up for some pretty serious
health problems when you're older.
So if diet sodas are bad for us, and regular sodas are bad for us,
what's the public to do?
Well, we could always... drink less soda! (Gasp!) But it will be a
struggle, since Americans already get 7% of their calories from soft
drinks, and the giant soda companies are paying billions to try to
convince us to drink even more.
Don't fall for their tricks. Next time you decide to obey your thirst,
grab a glass of fruit juice, milk, or water. Your body will thank you.
*JasmineK*
...Feeling like a hypocrite for writing this article on a day I've
spent consuming nothing but sugary soft drinks with added sugar... but
it
was doctor's orders, I swear! Just got my wisdom teeth removed. ;-)
Editor's Note: Fabulous report, JasmineK, both well-researched and well-written! We miss one thing, though -- what's this study of 50,000 women that established sugar is worse than the replacements? We'd love to know more about it: who did the study, where it was, what others are saying about it. Did you find it in a newspaper article? It's very interesting!!
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