Are you hooked on diet soda? If you're like Amanda Sanchez, a 29-year-old mother of two who drinks 12 cans a day, then you might want to cut back. Health experts think that consumption of diet sodas might lead to health consequences down the road. There have been no major studies stating that diet sodas are bad for you, however Dr. David Katz, a nutrition expert at the Yale School of Medicine believes that it could be damaging to your skeleton.
"There is some evidence that the acid load of soda, regular or diet, has an adverse affect on bone health. I would be very worried that if you are drinking 12 cans a day, diet or regular, it's potentially going to do damage to your skeleton, and eventually that can be a very serious problem.
However, the folks at Coca-Cola don't believe that's the case. Diana Garza, the communications director of Coca-Cola North America stated:
"Great taste. No calories. Wholesome ingredients. How could you drink too much?"
Even if there wasn't an ongoing debate on whether or not aspartame is safe, I don't think I could really consider it "wholesome," and I'm pretty confident that 12 cans of anything a day is probably 10 cans too many.
Source: ABC News
Tommy Hilfiger
DKNY
Chantelle
Unless it's those cans of water sent out to disaster areas, forget it. Everything else in moderation. A friend of mine used to drink so much DC that she has headaches if she doesn't drink them now. She's down to about 2 cans/day now.
1Wholesome ingredients? Okay....
2On a side note, when I read that someone named Dr. Katz said this, I imagined that wavy-lined cartoon Dr. Katz telling me that coke will damage my skeleton.
Drinking lots of soda in the absence of food is also very damaging to your teeth. When you drink soda with a meal, your saliva washes away some of the acid from the drink. Without, food and saliva, that acid can hang around and damage your teeth!
And I thought my one a day habit was bad.
3I'm with Twinkle - one a day and that's it! I thought that was bad enough...
4Wow, thats a terrible amount of soda to have in one day. I know she is not alone in her 'addiction' though, so many people over-indulge themselves with soda.
5Even if aspartane is okay for you, she's got to be dehydrated - probably why she keeps drinking it. Time to switch a few of those cans over to water.
6coke-cola can clean the muck of a coin and can clean a car bumper..imagine what its doing to our insides(myself included)
7I'm thinking that's 12 cans a day too many...that's just me though.
8I drink one diet Coke a day. I wish I could find something else that was sold in bulk like soda is because I don't have the money to spend $5 on a four-pack of something better for me. Sorry, body.
9And regarding the safety of aspartame, I've just done a big research project on it in grad school. There is no conclusive evidence that shows aspartame, sucralose, and even saccharin have any cancerous or brain damaging effects. Studies only show an association between artificial sweeteners and cancer in lab rats (no other animal, even monkeys, shows the same effect) at very high doses hundreds and thousands of times the allowable daily intake for human. There's a bunch more, but that's just the highlights.
12 cans though? Definitely too much, the acidity of soda can wreak havoc on your teeth and stomach and the caffeine can cause headaches after reducing intake (a symptom of withdrawal). Besides, isn't $50 bucks a week (or more) just spent on soda cause enough to cut back?
10What I love most about all of this is that the people at Coke call the ingredients wholesome. I laughed for like 10 minutes.
11I read this with my 2nd Diet Coke of the day in hand.
12mmm diet coke...i love the stuff. i used to drink SO MUCH, but i have cut down. i tended to replace food with it. it also made me feel fuller and stuff. i don't really care about how it affects me because there's so many contradictions. who to believe?
13but i get PISSED when people jump on me for drinking it. ohh man. i'm trying to cut down more because i read that it causes bloating.
I love soda and drink around 5-6 cans a day. I also drink my 8 glasses of water a day, so I don't think there's anything wrong as long as there is a balance (I think I'm just a really thirsty person!) I still don't think that Diet Coke is "wholesome," it's just not as bad as regular soda. Also, drinking soda through a straw prevents the damage to your teeth, so fellow soda drinkers, use straws.
14Ew, who drinks that much pop anyway. What's wrong with goog ol' water?
15I thought my two a day habit was bad....
16Ewwww I hate Diet Coke or any kind of soda for that matter.....When I see people drinking soda at breakfast I feel like I'm going to throw up, is a really bad habit! People need to drink water or no sugar added juice instead.
17um, isn't moderation key? 12 of anything, even bottles of water can't be good for you.
18wow that is a bit ridiculous, I don't even drink that much liquid in one day. The most cans of diet soda I will drink in a day is 2 but anymore than that is not even remotely healthy.
19Wholesome? Hardly. I'm drinking one now but I've had two Nalgenes full of water. And will have more.
20Wholesome! Oh, that's rich. I wonder how much Diet Coke Ms. Garza drinks.
21Pop is so awful for your teeth. I used to work for a dentist, and we told people that it was okay for a few times a week as long as it was with food to help neutralize the acid. Some types of pop are only one point on the pH scale away from battery acid -- yikes!
22I drink 3-4 Diet Cokes a day...it's easier to drink a can than to eat when I'm bored. I can't imagine drinking a dozen though!
23How could someone have time to do that?
Wholesome, not so much, but I do love my Diet Coke. I don't think I'll ever break that addiction!
24I used to only drink diet. Then I started to link diet soda to my migranes. To ween myself off of diet soda, I drank about half a can a day of regular soda (I'd rather have the extra 100 calories than a headache due to chemicals!). Now I just drink sparkling water when I'm craving a fizzy drink.
25I love Diet Coke, but I definitely don't have more than 2 cans in a day.
26I just remember one doctor on television, who was asked if diet soda or regular soda was worse for your body. He said, that there is no proof that the artificial sweeteners are bad for you and the other ingredients are the same for both (and equally bad), so if you have to drink it, you should stick to diet, because at least it has not that much sugar. But of course no soda would be best.
27I had a pretty good Diet Coke habit going in college and have struggled with it ever since. But in the last few years I've noticed that the caffeine affects my BP and makes me feel a bit more nervous so I've cut back and am drinking more tea and water. Yeah, tea has caffeine too but it doesn't seem to have the same effect. So maybe there's less caffeine in tea? I dunno.
28Oh wow I don't drink 12 a day but I def have one or two through out my week.
Pretty scarey!!
29It makes me sick thinking of drinking more than one can of anything in a day. That can't possibly be good for anyone. Think of all the chemicals and such you'd be flushing through your body.
3012?! Seriously? Wow!
31Who drinks 12 a day? I mean drink about 3 a day but 12? yeesh! Although I'm trying to cut down...
32I drink around 7 or 8 a day. I love Diet Coke. However, I have really bad anxiety and panic attacks and I know that my caffeine intake is definitely affected towards if I feel jumpy or not. If I drink too many in a row I get a little loopy. If I have over 8 sodas I am off the walls. So in moderation like anything else is OK!
33Post New Comment
Please share your opinion with our community, but make sure it is on topic and follows our Community Rules. We moderate comments and prohibit personal attacks, threats, spam, lewd images, or the promotion of your personal website.