Kick the (diet soda) can!

By the title of this post, you may think I'm going to say, "regular soda is better than diet". I'm not. While regular soda is a no brainer to remove from your diet (given the link between soda intake, obesity and heart disease), research suggests that diet is just as bad.Here's why. More and more data indicates that the more diet soda you consume, the heavier you are. A study at the University of Texas in 2005 found that the more diet soda a subject consumed, the likelihood of becoming overweight increased by 65% and obese by 41%. The university conducted a follow up study in 2011 and found that over a 10 year period, diet soda drinkers had 70% increases in waist circumference VS non-soda drinkers. Subjects that drank two or more diet sodas per day had waist circumference increases that were 500% higher than non-soda drinkers.Diet soda may not be effective in weight control for a handful of reasons. One reason is the artificial sweetener. Scientists believe that since artificial sweeteners have no calories, the brain gets ready to digest calories, but because they are lacking, the body is thrown off and you may consume calories from another source. Another study found that the brains of diet soda drinkers undergo greater activation of the brain's normal reward processing, which can increase the desire for food.Finally, daily consumption of artificially sweetened drinks was associated with cardiac risk factors including heart attack, stroke and even death in a 2012 study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. In addition, while both sweetened AND artificially sweetened drinks were associated with type 2 diabetes, diet drinks actually carried a greater risk, according to a 2013 study found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.Next time you want to grab a diet soda- think twice. Go for bottle water, unsweetened tea or seltzer water. Your waistline and heart will thank you.