Artificially Sweetened Beverages Really the Best Alternative?

An increasing number of people are being more self-conscious about their calorie intake.  One of the most common calorie trap people fall into comes from the beverage they drink – soft drinks. Here, I have used Coca Cola as our example since it is currently the best-selling soft drink in the world. In a 355mL can of Coca Cola Classic, it contains 39 grams of simple sugar making up 140 calories (1, 2)!

Amount of sugar in various sizes of Coca Cola Classic

With the general public recognizing the trend towards a low calorie diet, so does the Coca Cola Company. In response to this, they have two sweet alternatives: Diet Coca Cola and Coca Cola Zero (3). Both of these products have abandoned the use of sugar but used artificial sweetener instead. The result seemed to be quite profound where both products have zero calories per serving! This appears to be an incredible alternative for soft drink lovers who need to control/maintain their weight and sugar intake (especially for diabetics and obese individuals).

Coca Cola Diet

Coca Cola Zero

However, there are many health concerns related to artificial sweeteners that have not been entirely resolved (4). The most common artificial sweetener used in sugar-free beverages is aspartame for its inexpensiveness and commercially availability.  Even though it has been approved by various countries around the world, many controversial side effects (e.g. headaches, mood disorder, cancer, etc.) have been suggested to be caused by aspartame. Another fact unknown to the majority of the general public is that aspartame has an Acceptable Daily Intake value. Although most people would not reach the ADI value, it is possible that some individuals may over-consume aspartame over a long period of time.

Aspartame

Acesulfame Potassium

Another popular sweetener is called Acesulfame Potassium (a.k.a. AceK). Despite the fact that it is being used in over 100 countries around the world, it lacks proper testing and long term studies regarding health concerns (5). Some scientist proposed that AceK to be carcinogenic leading to the cause of liver and kidney problems, and cancer in humans. Although no studies have supported these findings, there are also no studies to go against these theories. 

Even though the two artificial sweeteners noted above have been approved by various food and safety departments all over the world and have been used in popular beverages for several decades, their safety concerns have not been fully resolved to ensure complete satisfaction. In addition, in our example Diet Coca Cola and Coca Cola Zero, their use of artificial sweetener is not limited to aspartame and AceK. The combination of sweeteners varies, depending on which country you are located and the availability of different sweeteners at that time (3). Therefore, it lacks consistency and credibility as to how sweeteners would affect people. In conclusion, ingesting 39 grams of simple sugar in one simple beverage is harmful to your body. But are you sure you want to ingest a chemical compound that has no proven benefit to your body? If you just want to quench your thirst, water (possibly with a slice of lemon) would do the trick!

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Fatal Flaws of Alternative Weight Lost/Maintenance Programs

In a technology advance world we live in today, information can be spread quickly via the World Wide Web. However, many businessmen saw this as a great opportunity to sell their product that may lack research supported data, credibility, and even approval from food safety, etc. One of these websites I came across related to my topic of maintaining healthy weight was the Master Cleanse Diet (1). It states that this diet plan will allow you to lose 20 pounds in 10 days so that you can restore a healthier, cleaner body.

Screen Shot 1

From initial reading of this website and then doing some research on the internet, I found that the Master Cleanse Diet is not supported by any experimental study using randomized/ double blind study to prove that it is an effective system to lose and maintain a healthy weight. Instead, what the author is trying to sell is individuals’ experiences who have tried this method (the author himself/herself is actually a participant who was devoted to optimize the program and advertised the revised program to others!).

Double Blind Study

For most people of the general public, losing up to 20lbs in 10 days is an unhealthy task, if not impossible. This system stresses the fact that there would be no exercise or physical activities involved during this time frame. This is likely to mean that this system promotes short term dieting rather than a long term lifestyle change to maintain a healthy weight. In order to have a healthy weight loss, it is recommended to aim at losing a steady 1-2 lbs a week to ensure that you are losing the fat instead of water and muscle mass (2, 3).

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 The Master Cleanse Diet emphasized that there is a shortcut in losing weight. There seems to be a controversy on what the author is trying to say here regarding the program. With further research about Master Cleanse diet by searching on Wikipedia (4), I found that it is classified as a liquid diet program that involves drinking only a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and laxative tea/saline solution; no solid food is eaten during the program. However, the author of this website suggested there is a list of safe food that allows you to “cheat”. Hence, this information about the program suggests that it is in fact a short term diet plan instead of offering interested individuals a long term option to maintain weight and have a healthy body. The correct way to lose weight in a healthy manner would be to balance your “energy in” and “energy out” properly (5).

Maintaining Weight

Losing Weight

Gaining Weight

          

In my point of view, one of the major flaws about the system is its emphasis on keeping your metabolism running high and burning fat while on a no fibre, carbohydrate, and meat diet. On the other hand, in order to burn fat, you would need to build up your muscle mass which would require the intake of various food groups. Eliminating an entire food group (or even several good groups!) will neglect you from a healthy, well-rounded diet and hence create nutritional imbalance (2).

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Lastly, the Master Cleanse Diet program uses many celebrities to promote their program. We do not know how much money these programs would pay professional actors to advertise their products. The use actors may distort the self image of teenagers or adolescents if they were to view the celebrities as their role model. However, even if it has positive results toward certain individuals, it does not mean that it is useful for everyone around the world (6).