Health Effects of Drinking Diet Soda

Diet soda is a popular choice for dieters and non-dieters alike. I've often seen someone order a supersized meal at a restaurant and ask for diet soda to supposedly "even the calories out". This is illogical thinking, and diet soda could actually be more harmful to your health than you think.

1. First, diet soda has the potential to harm your kidneys. In fact, in a Harvard study of 2,000 women, researchers found a two-fold increase in the likelihood of kidney decline in regular diet pop consumers. The main culprit is likely the artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas, since the researchers did not find the same effects in those who drank regular pop.
2. Diet soda can mess up your metabolism. Just one diet soda a day can put you at a higher risk for metabolic syndrome, leading to increased belly fat and high cholesterol.
3. Diet soda can make you fat. It sounds counterintuitive, but diet sodas actually disrupt the body's ability to regulate caloric intake based on the sweetness of foods.
4. You can suffer a bad hangover from alcohol mixed with diet pop. Diet pop make you drunker, faster because sugar-free mixers allow alcohol to enter the bloodstream faster than mixed drinks with sugar.

These are just a few of the negative health effects that you may experience if you're a regular diet pop drinker. But before you order a regular calorie pop when you're at a restaurant, consider asking for a water instead. While you're at, make sure to order a water for your kids, too. Recent reports suggest that the consumption of diet drinks in children has doubled in the last decade, which spells big future health problems for this country.