Diet soda or blues in a bottle?
It may sound like a country and western song, but emerging research is showing that it may be time to give soda (or “pop” to you Midwesterners) a new moniker — blues in a bottle.
If you’ve been suffering from depression — or are just not feeling like yourself lately — take a look at that carbonated beverage you’re guzzling daily before you run out to get a prescription for the latest, dangerous antidepressant.
A new study scheduled to be released at the American Academy of Neurology’s conference this spring found that people who consumed four or more cans of soda daily were a whopping 30% more likely to suffer from depression.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health looked at the beverage consumption habits of more than 250,000 people between 1995 -1996, and followed up with these same people a decade later. The heavy diet soda drinkers were all much more likely to be diagnosed with depression. The study advises drinking unsweetened coffee instead. It turns out coffee drinkers were 10% less likely to suffer from depression than non-coffee drinkers (we’ve been telling you about the health benefits of coffee for years!).
So what’s the deal with soda? Must be all that sugar, right? As Dr. Wright has explained in the past, the link between excessive sugar intake and depression, diabetes, and a host of other illnesses is rock solid.
But get this — the research participants who drank diet soda were actually more likely to suffer from depression than those who drank regular soda.
Now, don’t get me wrong — sugar-laden regular soda will cause a variety of health problems (or make them worse) when you drink too much of it. But the nation’s soda bottlers would have you believe that once they take the sugar out of their product, they’ve somehow turned it into a vitamin-rich salad. Really, it’s more like putting a filter on a cigarette — they may have cut back on the calories, but there’s still plenty to worry about.
If you have been reading this e-letter for a while, you know this isn’t the first time we’ve warned you that diet soda is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A previous study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that adults who drank diet soda daily where a stunning 44% more likely to suffer a heart attack.
Some of those research subjects had other risk factors such as obesity, but let’s be clear — diet soda, at the very least, wasn’t doing a darned thing to help.
The real takeaway here is that no matter what the Cokes and Pepsis of the world may try to convince you, there’s absolutely no health benefit to diet soda — and research is showing it may be downright harmful.
Our bodies, particularly as we age, need adequate hydration to keep our muscles, skin and other vital organs healthy, to flush away toxins, and to fight illness. And diet soda is no substitute for healthy beverages like water, herbal tea, or unsweetened coffee. Replace that daily Diet Coke with one of these healthier choices, and within a few weeks I’m guessing you will be stunned by how much better you feel.
Sources:
Diet Soda Linked to Depression in NIH Study: usnews.com
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