Put down that Diet Coke. You may think the “dietetic” soda is helping you stay slender, but a new study suggests that it may be linked to weight gain.
Researchers began by collecting data on the height, weight, waist circumference and diet soda intake of 474 elderly people. The participants were followed up with an average of 9.5 years later. The study found that the people who drank diet soda had waist circumferences 70 percent larger than those who did not drink diet soda. And here’s the kicker—participants who popped diet soda bottles at least twice a day had waist circumferences that were a whopping 500 percent larger than those who steered clear of diet beverages.
We didn’t realize that the “diet” in “Diet Coke” meant that we were going to have to go on one after drinking it. One of the study’s researchers, Helen P. Hazuda, Ph.D, professor and chief of clinical epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio's School of Medicine, described it eloquently: “[Diet sodas] may be free of calories, but not consequences.”
And that’s not the end of the diet soda saga. A second study was performed where researchers fed a group of mice a diet that included aspartame—an artificial sweetener used in diet soda—for three months. The scientists discovered that those mice had higher blood glucose levels than the mice who didn’t consume aspartame.
