Risks of Diet Soda

[USAF-Larry]

Recent article on the risks of Diet Soda.

"The harms of regular soda consumption have been well-documented over the past many years linking them to promoting obesity, dental cavities and inflammation in the body. Because of a strong public health push to reduce the consumption of regular soda, the sales of these beverages have taken a hit. But diet sodas are not necessarily the answer or what people should switch to when replacing regular soda, and particularly not for someone with end-stage renal disease."

 Read full article here - Risks of Diet Soda

[MarcoGFitbit]

Thank you for the interesting article @USAF-Larry! As a person who has dealt with renal disease from a very young age and received a transplant 6 years ago, sodas have been a big no-no for me since I was a kid and have tried to get my family and friends away from them as well. Even when sugar is reduced in diet sodas there are still many components that will harm a person's kidneys and I wouldn't want anyone to go through dialysis like I did.  

[Ukase]

I'm eagerly awaiting research on the long term impact of Stevia Leaf Extract found in Zevia. It's got the bubbles I like, no calories and nothing but water, stevia leaf extract and citric acid and whatever flavor soda it is, in the form of natural flavorings, whatever that mean. I just know it has a lot fewer of those polysyllabic ingredients. 

[LanuzaFitbit]

Thanks for sharing that article @USAF-Larry! It's very informative. 

@Ukase That sounds interesting. Perhaps it can be a safer, but delicious, alternative to sodas. I will try to read a bit more into that.

[WendyB]

I gave up soda Years ago. Dont miss it. Sometimes I will take a sip of my Hubby's and it just doesnt do anything for me.

Im a Water Person all the way.

[SantiR]

I am very afraid of this. I know drinking soda in excess is very risky. Now I ask myself... why? Why should we drink that? Even now that we know the risks.

It is just not needed, you know? We have fruits and vegetables that we can get juice from. Why not? We just need to pick them up and extract the juice. If you don't have a juice extractor... Christmas is near! Let's start the year not drinking any sodas and drinking natural fruit juice. We will feel great, I'm sure. 

I totally support the idea of not drinking sodas! 

[shipo]

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@SantiR wrote:

I am very afraid of this. I know drinking soda in excess is very risky. Now I ask myself... why? Why should we drink that? Even now that we know the risks.

It is just not needed, you know? We have fruits and vegetables that we can get juice from. Why not? We just need to pick them up and extract the juice. If you don't have a juice extractor... Christmas is near! Let's start the year not drinking any sodas and drinking natural fruit juice. We will feel great, I'm sure. 

I totally support the idea of not drinking sodas! 

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Then there is always unsweetened tea; typically I drink between four and six liters of green tea per day.

[USAF-Larry]

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@SantiR wrote:

We have fruits and vegetables that we can get juice from. Why not? We just need to pick them up and extract the juice. If you don't have a juice extractor... Christmas is near! Let's start the year not drinking any sodas and drinking natural fruit juice.

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I prefer to eat the fruit & vegetables rather than juicing them - that way I get the fiber with the juice. But, I do like fruit or vegetables which have been liquified in my VitaMix, and I do buy natural fruit juice to have with meals.  The rest of the time, it is water for me....  

[SantiR]

@shipo I have heard that green tea is a great diuretic and that it has tons of properties for a healthy lifestyle. I will follow your advice to drink more green tea! 

@USAF-Larry There is nothing better than eating a cold juicy melon or pineapple. You drink while you eat. I support that as well! 

Natural juice and water is better than any soda. I think restaurants should promote that a little bit more! 

[HelenaFitbit]

Oh man, this hits home. I can't really have any sugar in my diet (even fruit has to be pre-planned) so my only treat has been a diet coke. I have reduced my consumption but I'm still having it. 

[lmccarroll]

Thank you so much for this article.  I have to shamefully admit that I have been a soda addict in my life.  Although plain H2O is the most the best substitute for soda, I've found that sparkling water is a close 2nd.  The Sparkling Ice beverages in particular are packed with vitamins and minerals, and tastewise, they offer the combination of both juice and a soda. 

[nearmsp]

I could not understaand if the article refers to people who do not have any kidney disease or those who are already on some stage (1-4) of kidney disease and consumption of diet soda's accelerated the progression of the disease to stage 5 or end-stage? In particular a sentence in the article says, "The researchers found there were weaker associations between diet soda and people in earlier stages of kidney disease." So what is the correlation between consumption of diet soda's in otherwise normal people? Is there a significant cause and effect relationship?

[SantiR]

I think anything in excess could be harmful for our bodies. I heard that if you drink soda in excess you can get kidney stones! Which hurts a lot, they say. I think the risk is less with diet soda, but you can still get them if you drink too much! Will have to investigate further on this! 

[SunsetRunner]

@SantiR   I'm not too sure about healthy folk getting kidney stones.  Diet pop is my last bad habit and I've drank 4-6 a day since at least 1996 and I'm healthy with nary a kidney stone in sight.  🙂  

My brother, a huge tea drinker, has recently been diagnosed with kidney disease of the idiopathic variety but I don't think it's caused by his tea drinking.  I think a lot of disease and sickness is dependent on the draw of the gene pool and by that, I mean, the predisposition to have an issue can be genetic but environment and choices play the bigger issue.

[SantiR]

@SunsetRunner Very interesting! I think genetics has a lot to do with any kind of diseases. I'm very sorry to hear that about your brother. 

Probably, diet soda is not that harmful then! Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this! 

[CaliCollie]

Thank you for sharing.  I used to drink regular soda but switched to diet due to history of diabetes in my family.  In May 2016, I took a 2 week health challenge that included no soda of any type.  It was hard, I was addicted (I admit it) but I survived.  I told myself, keep it up and I did and it got easier.  I still had days I craved soda but after a month I didn't want to lose my streak.  It has now been over 7 months and I am really proud of myself.  Soda free!!!!

[USAF-Larry]

Congratulations on kicking the habit, @CaliCollie!  Keep on keeping on!

[SantiR]

@CaliCollie Congratulations on that! I'm very happy for you! Now you can do other things instead of drinking soda. They say that substituting bad habits for good habits is a great way to change a life style! 

[SunsetRunner]

Major congrats on quitting diet pop-I make sporadic efforts but so far, I'm still drinking too much.  Oddly enough, my main concern is all the plastic bottles in the recycle bin lmao