Want a Soda? Go with Your Gut.

[BridgeTheGap]

Diet drinks and artificially sweetened treats are calorie free, but new research indicates that they’re fooling more than your mouth—and most likely messing with your metabolism. Scientists have discovered that the biological machinery that allows you to taste sweet with your tongue also exists in the gut, reports Science News (March 27, 2010).

In the mouth, sweet-taste receptors tell the brain to pump saliva, chew, and swallow. No problem there. In the gut, however, they “take this response to the next level, affirming that fuel is indeed incoming and setting off reactions to cope with it.” These reactions include releasing a surge of insulin, which encourages cells to drain glucose from blood and store it as energy in the muscles and liver. Artificial sweeteners trigger the same reactions, only there’s no energy for the body to harvest.

Scientists are still enthusiastically studying this whole body sense of taste, but the nascent discovery is likely to shed light on recent studies that established a seemingly perplexing association between drinking diet beverages and developing metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. As Science News concludes: “Perhaps that adage ‘Trust your gut’ should be accompanied with another edict: ‘Tell it no lies.’ ”

http://www.utne.com/Environment/Artificial-Sweeteners-Diet-Soda-Metabolism.aspx?utm_content=07.26.10+Environment&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

[qb]

1. Yikes! It's a good thing I've been cutting back.

[BadgerKid]

2. Dunno...I'd like to read the study

to see their protocol. Chances are that a person being type 2 is likely due to being overweight and sedentary (the figure is 95% according to WebMD.com). In those cases it seems to me diet soda is the least of the problems going on.

In my case, diet soda tastes "empty" and encourages me to eat a little more food to get rid of the sensation.

[hedgehog]

3. If diet soda tastes "empty", my question is does it really make you

feel empty? If so, you may be experiencing the insulin reaction the article describes.

[Odin2005]

4. That is exactly why I can't stand artificial sweeteners, they make me crave carbs.

"Tell it no lies" :rofl:

[dmallind]

10. Other way round here

I have absolutely no concern about losing weight or being "in shape" or cutting calories. I drink only diet sodas though, for the reason of taste alone. The leaded stuff tastes way too much like syrup to me and is too cloying to be refreshing or slake my thirst.

[arikara]

5. How anyone can stand that stuff is beyond me

It tastes like what it is... poison. And I've never seen anyone trying to lose weight by glugging down diet soda ever getting any slimmer.

[Better Today]

6. I have never ever drunk a diet soda. If I need less sugar and calories,

on any given day, I simply switch to unsweetened ice tea, or water. Those sweeteners are just gross, too many carbonated drinks make my face puff up anyway, so I guess I'm just not a soda addict in the first place.

Though I am quite slender, I've caught hell for years for not drinking diet... :::eyebrows raised to their hairline:::: "You DON'T drink DIET!! How do you stay so slender!"...::::me, entirely smug, and turning out to be right for nearly 30 years I didn't realize:::: "By not drinking DIET! or using any artificial sweeteners." At which point, the next "lecture" these fat, diabetic ladies would try to push on me would be about how sugar causes diabetes, they knew because they had diabetes...except they couldn't ever put together that they drank DIET and had diabetes, I love sugar, and have no diabetes, no weight issue, except perhaps too skinny.

I love it! I feel VALIDATED! (and smart for not being swayed all these years)

[BridgeTheGap]

7. Fortunately, I've never tasted a diet-soda I liked. If I had, I'd probably be drinking them

to avoid the sugar. As it is, I don't drink sugar sodas very often. High fructose cornsyrup isn't high on my list of favorite things to consume.

[felinetta]

8. All soda companies would go broke if they relied on me. I don't drink any of that. Haven't for

many years.  It is awful stuff. 

[Jennicut]

9. I will admit to drinking too much diet soda. I am a type 1 diabetic.

And my meals are so boring to begin with. Plain water is soooo boring too. Flavored water has the artificial sweeteners in it and juice is out as it has sugar so....there is only so much plain water one wants to drink with meals. Oh well.