Why choosing diet drinks over regular beverages is not good for your health

Dt. Tamanna Narang

M.Sc - Dietitics / Nutrition (Delhi University) · Dietitian/Nutritionist ·

Why choosing diet drinks over regular beverages is not good for your health.

Have you switched to diet drinks from regular ones considering your weight or calorie intake? it probably is not the right choice. The reason is drinking diet beverages harms your body and will only result in more weight gain.

Although diet beverages are calorie free, they are added with artificial sweetener called aspartame which is reportedly 200 times sweeter than table sugar. This chemical adversely affects many body functions.

Effects of diet beverages on body in this list might suggest why you should continue your regular beverages occasionally, instead of shifting to diet drinks.

1. Increases belly fat
According to studies, the people who drank diet beverages showed increased waist size than the ones who drank the regular sugar drinks. The reason is believed to be the artificial sweetener and changed attitude towards food habits as the diet beverages easily justify high calorie food like burger, fries etc in turn. This is a concern as increased visceral fat, a body fat stored within abdominal cavity, is associated with increased risk of heart diseases and type 2 diabetes, the most common diabetes related to problems with insulin regulating the blood sugar.

2. Damage to brain
Aspartame is also known to damage brain by affecting the nerve cells and nerve endings in the cerebellum which are important for motor skills.

3. Low bone density
Drinking diet drinks lead to low bone mineral density and osteoporosis especially in females. Pelvic bone is most commonly affected in women by regular consumption of diet beverages.

4. Harmful for teeth
The diet beverages also contain large volume of citric acid which causes tooth erosion destroying tooth enamel in the regular users. The risk is comparatively less in the regular sugar drinks users.

5. Side effects
As aspartame may also interfere with different activities of brain, there are many side effects of diet drinks like headache, change in vision, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, memory loss, depression etc.