Diet Drinks and Diabeties

Did you know we drank over 43 billion cans and bottles of diet soda last year? Diet soda’s been on my mind lately because I’ve been reading the latest studies on diabetes. Did you know drinking diet sodas leads to diabetes?

One recent study says point blank that if you drink diet soda every day, you’re 67 percent more likely to develop diabetes.1

And the more you drink, the worse it is. Another study found that those who drank the most diet dininks had a 34 percent greater risk than those who drank the least.2

Even the famous Framingham Heart Study found that people who drink more than one diet drink a day have a 56 percent increased chance for developing metabolic syndrome – that’s the group of risks that give you a greater chance for diabetes, as well as coronary artery disease and stroke.3

But if you want a sweetened drink, a good alternative to diet sodas are drinks sweetened with xylitol.

The best thing about xylitol is that it’s a natural extract. It has no calories, and doesn’t spike your blood sugar. In fact, it might even help increase insulin sensitivity.4 And increasing your insulin sensitivity – that is, keeping the amount of insulin you need to process sugar low – is the key to reversing diabetes.

I applaud ideas you can use to get away from drinking diet soda and get off the road to diabetes.

1 Nettleton, J.A., Lutsey, P.L., Wang, Y., Lima, J.A., Michos, E.D., Jacobs, D.R. Jr., "Diet soda intake and risk of incident metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA),” Diabetes Care Apr 2009; 32(4): 688-94
2 Lutsey, Pamela L., Steffen, Lyn M., Stevens, June, "Dietary Intake and the Development of the Metabolic Syndrome. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study," CIRCULATION AHA Jan 2008; 107.716159
3 Dhingra R, Sullivan, et al, “Soft drink consumption and risk of developing cardiometabolic risk factors and the metabolic syndrome in middle-aged adults in the community,” Circulation 2007; 116:480–488
4 Gregersen S, Jeppesen PB, Holst JJ, Hermansen K., "Antihyperglycemic effects of stevioside in type 2 diabetic subjects," Metabolism Jan. 2004; 53(1):73-6