The lawsuit states diet pop made six soft drink lovers gain weight instead of lose weight.
They are claiming the sugar substitute aspartame interfered with how the body metabolizes calories. And they feel marketing the drinks as diet is not only false and misleading but unlawful as well.
Diet sodas are less in calories but they have not been shown to promote weight loss.
In fact, one study found people who had one or more artificially-sweetened drinks a day not only had higher risks for obesity, but also higher risks for type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease.
Diet pop is sweetened with either aspartame, saccharin, or sucralose. These sugar substitutes taste much sweeter than regular soda and this can actually dull your taste buds. You could end up craving more sugar and high-calorie foods which leads to weight gain.
They may also trigger an insulin response which could throw your body into fat storage mode.
Research is showing there’s a downside to diet soda yet people still see as a low-calorie alternative. So here are my prescriptions:
- Reduce your intake of sweetened beverages. If you’d like a calorie-free drink, choose water. Flavor it with fruit to make it tastier.
- If you must have a soda, treat yourself with a regular pop. But drink it occasionally as there’s very little nutritional value in these drinks.
- Check food labels to know exactly what you’re consuming. You can find sugar substitutes in other foods like yogurt, granola bars, and gum.
- When it comes to losing weight, you need to eat healthy and exercise. Opt for whole foods that are minimally processed and aim for 150 minutes of physical activity per week.
Unless you’ve been diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called phenylketonuria, the FDA says nonnutritive sweeteners have been determined as safe for their intended uses.
However if you have any adverse effects, they do recommend you report them through their reporting program called MedWatch.
