Reasons You Should Stop Drinking Diet Soda

1. It could increase your risk of type 2 diabetes!

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Some people assume that because a diet soda has 0 sugar, or 0 calories, it must be better for you... wrong! Artificial sweeteners in diet soda can lead to your body creating a resistance to insulin. This of course is a big aspect of type two diabetes, and so it may increase the risk of developing it.

2. It could make you gain weight

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Drinking diet soda could lead to you putting on weight - despite the 0 calories! Diet soda does not have sugar, but the artificial sweeteners can alter the body's functions in terms of weight regulation. So, your body may find it more difficult to regulate and as a result you could find yourself gaining weight.

3. It could be affecting your mental health!

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You'd probably never even think that diet soda could be damaging your mental health. But one study reported that those who drank 4 or more diet soda drinks a day were actually 30% to experience depression in comparison to people who did not. Studies have suggested these figures are worse in diet soda compared with regular.

4. It can interfere with your natural blood sugar levels!

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Of course, sugar can spike your insulin levels. However, due to the unnatural sweeteners in diet soda which are formed of different chemicals, your body doesn't know how to respond to these. In fact, some experts think that it tricks your body into producing a reaction which can be more dangerous than how it would normally respond to sugar intake.

5. It could cause migraines

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Some experts and studies have found a link between drinking diet soda and headaches/migraines. In fact, it was found that those who drink diet soda are more likely to experience frequent headaches than those who drink normal soda, due to the chemicals it contains.

6. It could decrease your infertility

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More research has been done into the effects of diet soda as it becomes a more popular solution to drinking full sugar soda. But at what cost? The consequences are not fully understood. But one study did suggest that drinking diet soda can actually inhibit fertility in men and women.

7. It may damage your liver

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Again, a study was conducted on the effects of diet soda, and in particular what effect it has on the liver. The study suggested that diet soda was bad for the liver and drinking it frequently could actually lead to damage - possibly even permanent damage.

8. It may increase types of cancer

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It is not often that we would ever assume consuming types of chemicals is a good option, be it food or drink. However, because the alternative is sugar, some people prefer it. But some researchers have suggested that the ingredients in diet soda could lead to an increase of cancers if it was being consumed in large quantities.

9. It might impact your gut health

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Research has suggested that diet soda may disrupt our gut microbiome - the good bacteria in your gut! This is vital for our overall health and immune system however, studies have found that diet soda has damaged gut bacteria, thus has impacted the health of the the gut microbiome.

10. It may damage your bones

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Drinking more diet soda may actually lead to the loss of bone density and make your bones weaker and more brittle, and in turn, increase the risk of osteoporosis. Experts are still unsure exactly why diet soda may have this effect on your bone health.

11. It may damage your teeth

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Don't be fooled into thinking that just because there's no natural sugar, it's fine for your teeth. Apparently, this is totally not the case; it is thought that diet soda also has a bad impact on your teeth and can damage your tooth enamel, due to the high acidity it contains.

12. Your heart may suffer

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Sugar may not be good for your health, but neither may artificial sweeteners. One study claimed that diet soda affects the heart due to a study they conducted which showed that regular diet soda drinkers were more likely to suffer from heart conditions such as heart disease.

13. You might not be getting essential vitamins as a result

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The contents of artificial sweetener in diet soda as well as the other added ingredients may actually interfere with our body's natural ability to absorb vitamins and minerals that we need for our overall health. Drinking diet soda, therefore, may limit our intake of important vitamins.

14. You want more and more sugar

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Just because you aren't getting that sugary hit, doesn't mean that your brain isn't responding in the same way. Apparently, it may affect your brain in the same way as sugar - meaning that you will still crave sugar. In fact, artificial sweeteners are sweeter and so it might actually make your cravings worse than normal soda.

15. You might have more mood swings

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Again, our emotional wellbeing isn't something most of us considered being affected with regular diet soda drinking. However, because of the way the artificial sweetener causes ups and downs in our blood sugar levels, this can also have a similar effect on our mood.

16. It may be bad for our kidneys

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Studies have linked drinking diet soda with an extra risk of developing chronic kidney disease. This varied on how many diet sodas were drank per week. But, a recent study suggested that people who drink more than 7 per week may nearly double their risk of developing kidney disease.

17. It may cause high blood pressure

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High blood pressure is a huge problem in the USA, as well as many other countries in the world. It is an increasing risk, and another potential beverage which may increase high blood pressure is you guessed it...diet soda. It can interrupt our ability to process sugars and increase our blood pressure.

18. It might stop you properly absorbing medication!

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There are certain contents inside diet soda which may mess up our ability to absorb our medication. It could potentially harm our ability to absorb it fully and properly into the body, meaning that perhaps the medication cannot work to its full ability as it is intended.

19. We may not get rid of the chemicals

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The chemicals that are inside diet soda could be potentially harmful for our bodies. These chemicals are harder for our body to breakdown because they are unnatural, and created substances. So, they may last in our body without us being able to dispose of it.

20. It might cause metabolic syndrome

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Diet soda has been linked in research and multiple studies with causing metabolic problems. This might potentially lead to metabolic syndrome. Some of these symptoms can include storing fat around the middle of the stomach, as well as high cholesterol!

21. It could damage our cells

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Diet soda may be damaging our cells and our DNA. The chemicals called sodium benzoate and/or potassium benzoate may potentially be very bad for our bodies in that it actually damages the structure of our DNA and cells. These chemicals have been banned in some but not all diet sodas.

22. May affect your memory

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Research has suggested that drinking diet soda may actually affect your memory, the functions of your memory, and the ability to store information for long periods of time in your brain - which, is a frightening and a largely unknown possible side effect of diet soda.

23. It could cause muscle weakness

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Have you noticed a feeling of weakness in your muscles after consuming a lot of diet soda? It is possible that diet soda may be causing weakness in the muscles due to the chemicals inhibiting our normal processes. Which, could lead to them feeling weaker or feeling like they have no energy.

24. It may increase your chances of a stroke

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Having a stroke is an extremely serious and dangerous thing. And although the evidence is not conclusive, studies have suggested that there may be a link between drinking a lot of diet soda on a regular basis, and increasing the risk of having a stroke.

25. You could become addicted

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So, recent studies have suggested that diet soda may be more addictive than drinking regular soda. There seems to be something in the contents of diet soda that can leave you craving more and more, even more so than craving the natural sugar in the regular soda. It is not clear which chemical/chemicals may have this effect yet.

26. It may cause hormone imbalances

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Hormone balances are fairly sensitive, and imbalanced hormones can cause a whole host of different problems to our physical and emotional health. But the additives in diet soda could interfere with your natural hormone balance throwing them out of whack!

27. It could be draining your energy

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If you are a regular drinker of diet soda and you have no energy, you might be actually tempted to grab another can. In actual fact, perhaps it's the diet soda that is draining your energy. Diet soda may cause dehydration and it could also over stimulate your nervous system, draining your energy.

28. It tricks out brains and body

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The problems with diet soda is that our body won't process it in the same as something natural; and so, it may cause strange effects as well as tricking the body into certain feelings and physical effects that are not normal responses for our body to have.

29. Alcohol could have more serious effects

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When you drink alcohol with diet soda, it may have more effect on the body. During a breathalyser test it suggested that those drinking alcohol with diet soda rather than regular soda had a larger alcohol consumption reading. This is because it absorbs the artificial sweetener quicker than it does the natural sugar.

30. It's not healthy!

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So when people say they're being 'healthy', opting for the diet soda version...it's not the case. It also has no nutritional value; there's carbonated water, sweeteners, additives and it doesn't actually contain anything that is good for the body. So, if it's a choice between this and another drink - maybe go for a healthier alternative.