I saw this in a newsletter I get from Gourmet Magazine. Interesting??

"Remember when you thought the "negative calories" in diet soda could cancel out the positive ones in a chocolate chip cookie? According to a recent study from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York, the opposite may be true: Drinking diet soda actually causes your body to absorb more sugar. Turns out that artificial sweeteners trigger the same taste receptors in the small intestine that glucose does, releasing hormones that absorb sugar into the bloodstream. Our advice? Wash down that cookie with a nice glass of milk."

Thanks! Great to know. Sodas should be an occasional treat, not the staple they are in our diets!
I'm always surprised when a whole foods, otherwise healthy diet/plan approves diet sodas on the menu/food list!

This has completely been my experience with diet sodas...About 15-20 minutes after drinking them I feel a blood sugar crash just as if I had eaten something really sweet. I like diet coke so I occasionally have one WITH a meal. But too many and I am right back on the craving bandwagon just as if I had eaten dessert.

It really annoys me that the "healthy schools" laws allow diet soda. Some of them even dont want to allow juice, but will allow diet soda

Drat, I thought for once there might be some good news about diet drinks. I have to admit, it's the one thing I'm having trouble with...but I'm down to no more than one a day (sometimes I don't even have one). Thanks for the info though!

I looked up more about this study and found this link with a little more info:

http://fusion.mssm.edu/media/content.cfm?storynum=325

As a former consumer of massive quantities of diet pepsi, I find this fascinating.

Miracles do happen though. No diet sodas for me now for..... I can't even remember. 8-9 months or more. Where's the dancing water bottle smilie?

My mom has been telling me for years that the diet coke is making me fatter, or not helping with the weight loss...guess mother does know best, lol. I know diet sodas are not good for me and I just didn't want to hear it. But reading Skinny B*tch really has opened my eyes for some reason and I am listening now. I've not cut it out completely yet, but I haven't had as much as I normally drink so that's a plus, I guess. I have cut back drastically and eventually want to cut it out completely...working on drinking more water for sure. I've got to learn to drink tea without the sweeteners as well.

Thanks for the info Spinymouse!

Who in the world ever thought THAT???

LOL @ LLV. I surely never thought it, I have always known that diet soda was probably not so good for me.

My dad has been telling me for years, also, that diet sodas can make you gain weight. I still drink them, though. I have one a day, no more (unless it's a special occasion). I still drink 5-6 bottles of water a day and at least one glass of skim milk. I just love Diet Pepsi with my lunch! (Or when I am around people eating and I don't want to eat... a glass or bottle of Diet Pepsi keeps my mind off the food spread!)

Wow, that's really interesting research. I'd like to find out more. However, I don't know if we can jump the conclusions about diet sodas from the current research. The link doesn't actually say anything about diet sodas. The closest bit says this: "This work may explain why current artificial sweeteners may not help with weight loss, and may lead to the production of new non-caloric sweeteners to better control weight..."

It seems to me this work is preliminary and they haven't identified how the receptors work. At least from this link, we don't know anything about the research (such as whether studies were conducted on humans or animals). So, it may certainly be that diet sodas are problematic in this regard, but I don't know if we can say that based on this research...

BTW, I applaud you for cutting out diet sodas. While I don't know that we really understand how diet sodas are working in our systems, I have a feeling it's likely that pure water is probably better for us. I haven't made that change yet, however.

I think they didn't mean that people thought the calories in the diet soda would actually cancel the cookie cals as in, make them zero, but I think what they were meaning was that people thought that, if you drank diet soda, you weren't getting calories there so you got to have a cookie. Again, I'm just assuming that is what they meant.

And Heather- although I don't have the actual publication or know the particulars, I can say that I am not surprised. Diet sodas always increased my appetite, so I couldn't say what was going on physiologically, but something was happening there, that is not happening anymore - yay!

I will see if I can find out further info. I'm very interested in this, as a lab rat myself (analytical chemistry) and former diet soda drinker.

Let me know if you do find out more. I'm simply fascinated (and a little freaked out!) by the idea of taste receptors in the small intestine!!!!

As a chemist, you probably have a better chance of understanding it than the rest of us, so maybe you can help us interpret it too!

When the temperature of Aspartame (the sweetner) exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol ASPARTAME coverts to formaldehyde.

Still wanna drink it?

I <3 whole foods!

I just bought the publication. It's not light reading!
Both humans and mice were involved in the study. No mention was made of spinymice.
Interesting how the media puts their twist on it with the "soda" thing. No mention was made of diet soda specifically, but I guess the media are trying to make it something we can relate to easily.
The artificial sweetener used in the study was sucralose.
That's what I have after a speed-read through it. I'll read it more in depth tonight.

jo

Spinymouse -- any sense of how they discovered we even have these receptors?

So, we know these receptors react to sucralose and the link you had yesterday indicated other sweeteners (which could be developed) may not react the same way....

What about "natural" sugars. How do the receptors react to fruit, for instance?? Do we know?

Okay, I'll shut up now! Just know I'll be interested in what you find!