The Diet Soda Trap

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Type 2 diabetes sufferers all know they must avoid soda and other sugary drinks like the plague. Because diabetes patients cannot produce insulin, which moves sugar from the blood into the cells where it can do some good, they are in a constant struggle to keep their blood sugar levels low.

Diet sodas advertise that they are sugar-free, so many soda-loving diabetes patients have turned to these with a reasonable expectation that they will satisfy their sweet tooths and not affect their blood sugar levels.

It turns our they may be only half right.

A recent study posted in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition followed 66,118 women for 14 years, keeping track of the drinks they consumed. At the end of the study, both sugar-sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened beverages were linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The science behind this appears to lie in the “metabolic syndrome.” This term describes a group of factors, often occurring together, that increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. These include:

  • Low levels of "good" cholesterol (HDL cholesterol)
  • High blood sugar levels
  • Belly fat
  • High levels of fats in the blood known as triglycerides
  • High blood pressure

As long as diet soda negatively impacts any of these risk factors, its consumption will have a negative effect on diabetes.

Since belly fat is a contributing factor in diabetes, anything that causes a patient to go up in pants sizes adversely affects his disease. A study published by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at long-term effects on waist size in diet soda drinkers, and found that participants who drank diet soda on a daily basis showed more than quadruple the waist gain than those who did not drink it. This shows a long-term link between diet soda consumption and belly fat.

Another study from the American Diabetes Association found a significant link between diet soda and the development of high blood sugar levels and belly fat: a 67 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes in people who drank diet soda daily.

Diet soda, it seems, is a trap, a high-risk wolf in sugar-free clothing for those people looking to control or prevent type 2 diabetes.