The Truth about Diet Soda & Weight Gain

When you go to a fast food restaurant, do you order the regular soda or the diet soda? For most individuals, "diet" soda is the way to go. It has no sugar and no calories, right?

Well, not exactly. A new study released by the Purdue University indicated that saccharin, the artificial sweetener used in diet sodas, may actually lead to weight gain. This may be good news for those who are trying to gain weight – but you should still watch out your diet soda consumption.

If you are in the habit of drinking one or more bottles of diet soda a day – you really do need to rethink your health priorities.

Originally, the goal of drinking diet sodas is to cut back on your sugar intake while lowering your daily caloric consumption.

The reason why diet sodas may lead to weight gain as compared to regular sodas is because there is a tendency for your body to 'think' that it is getting the calories because of that artificial sweet taste.

So in essence, the more diet sodas that you have, the more foods you may crave to eat because of the calories that your body thinks it is not getting from this artificially sweetened drink.

The studies also indicated that the artificial sweetener content used in diet sodas increased the risk of a person developing the following by 30 to 40%:

• Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Stroke
• Weight Gain

Now, if you are trying to gain weight, the occasional drinking of diet sodas may help boost your weight gain program. However, if you do not want to increase your risks of suffering from diabetes, heart disease and stroke – you should still ease up on your drinking of any saccharine-filled drinks like diet sodas.