Why is diet Coke addicting? (Read 2155 times)

Diet soda causes a cephalic phase insulin response which would inhibit fat burning. http://napah.ca/asp/news/articles/diet_sodas_cause_weight_gain.asp

Another problem with artificial sweeteners is a reflex that occurs when the brain reacts to sweet taste. The jargon used is "cephalic phase response". When sweet taste stimulates the tongue, the brain programs the liver to prepare for acceptance of new energy--sugar--from outside. If it is indeed sugar that stimulates the response, the effect on the liver will be the proper regulation of that sugar which has entered the body. However, if sweet taste is not followed by real nutrient availability, an urge to eat will be the outcome. It is the liver that produces the signals and the urge to eat. The more sweet taste that stimulates the taste buds without the accompanying calories, the more there is an urge to eat--overeat. The effect of cephalic phase response to sweet taste has been clearly shown in animal models with the use of saccharin. Using aspartame, several scientists have shown a similar urge to overeat in humans. Blundel and Hill have shown that non-nutritive sweeteners (aspartame in solution) will enhance appetite and increase short-term food intake. They report: "After ingestion of aspartame, the volunteers were left with a residual hunger compared with what they reported after glucose. This residual hunger is functional, it leads to increased food consumption." Another group of researchers, Tardoff and Friedman, have shown that this urge to eat more food after artificial sweeteners can last up to 90 minutes. They showed that even when blood levels for insulin achieved normal levels (a high reading of insulin is believed to be the cause of hunger), test animals consumed more food than the control batch. What this means is that the "brain" retains for a long time the urge to eat when the taste buds for sugar are stimulated without sugar having entered the system.

Which one is which? You're all worthless and weak!

I was already here and gone. But I'm back to say: full size shrunken head.

Her head is the same size. I left after the first drink.

Diet coke thoughts: My mother was a diet coke "addict." I subsequently became a diet coke "addict," or more accurately, a diet dr. pepper addict. In high school I didn't drink coffee but I'd stop at the store on my way to school for a diet dr. pepper. Another at lunch, another after school...frightening. Then I went to college and drank even more of the stuff. Finally one year I said enough is enough and I quit drinking any kind of soda for a year. That was.....7 years ago or so and my "addiction" has never come back. I drink diet soda occasionally (I think because I started drinking it at a young age, I will always prefer diet over regular soda, which tastes too syrupy for my taste), but not every day. I think the addiction is a combination of habit (biggie), caffeine to a certain extent, and the artificial sweeteners. You're thirsty, you drink soda, you get more thirsty, you drink more soda. Soda drinkers prefer soda over water so the cycle never really stops unless you make it a priority. SJP thoughts: FULL SIZE SHRUNKEN HEAD!!! DH once said that he thought she was hot and I have been teasing him unmercifully ever since. If you put a paper bag over her head, yes, she has a great body--skinny, big boobs, etc--but come on, it's a full size shrunken head on top!

Personally I can't stand the stuff!!

Why diet Coke is addicting? Maybe there is some genetic trait that makes you more vulnerable to develop a (diet) Coke addiction I never liked Coke, and so we never have Coke in the fridge. But when DS was 4, his niece offered him his first glass of Coke (honest, I deprived that poor kid of Coke for more than three years). He took a sip, looked at her and said: 'This tastes poisonous!' (He turns 12 this month, and never has taken another sip - I'm afraid his favorite beverage is just sparkling water.) And is was only during our last Christmas dinner, that my mother told me that when she was 14, and was on a summer camp, she was offered a bottle of Coke. It was 1951, so many of those other Belgian girls had - just like her - never tasted coke before. But most of them seemed to like the stuff. You guess... not my mother. For her it tasted 'like some sort of medicine'. But since a few years, we always use of few cans of Coke during summer: it seems to work better to attract wasps to the wasp trap then lemonade... (No, diet Coke doesn't work )

I'm going to see how bad the addiction is. Starting Monday I'm going start breaking the habit. Going to do this slowly, reducing the number I drink every few days until I reach one. Then switch to a cup of green tea at the start of the work day. Goal is more water and no die coke/pepsi. Have pity on my fellow co-workers.