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Addicted to Diet Coke?Anyone?

My family and friends have some concerns about my daily amount of Diet Coke that I consume during the day, in a "slow" day ,I will drink a 6 pack but I can easily cruise to 12-20 cans a day at any giving time, I will go weeks without drinking water and if I drink 4 glasses of water in a month that may be a lot.

For some reason I just don't like the taste of the water period, I know I have to stop this drinking habit but what I'm going to replace it with??

Anyone has a similar problem? :(

Quote:

The Dangers of Diet Coke, Pepsi and Other Diet Foods

A better alternative to Aspartame is Stevia Sweetner, which comes from leaf and is 100% natural. It can be found at eHealthSupplies.com or Wisdom Natural Brands.

(The foregoing article is from Dr. Whitaker’s March 2000 vol. 12 No. 3.
You can subscribe to Dr. Whitaker’s Health & Healing by calling 800/539- 8219 or go to Dr. Whitaker - Home Page)

——–

Artificial sweeteners are marketed with the promise of weight control, and the vast majority of people who consume them do so to either lose or avoid gaining weight. Folks, this is a fraud of gigantic proportions.

From 1960 to l976, there was virtually no change in the number of Americans who were overweight: roughly 24 percent of the population. However, from the mid l980s to the present, this number has more than doubled to 54 percent! This coincides with the massive infusion of noncaloric chemical sweeteners and sugar-free “diet” foods that are eaten by close to three-quarters of the adult population.

Although several factors contribute to these alarming statistics, I am convinced that our blind acceptance of the most popular of these artificial sweeteners, aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful), plays a significant role in our current weight problems. Far from helping us lose weight, aspartame has been proven to increase appetite, especially cravings for sweets. Imagine “diet” products that help you pack on extra pounds! And aspartame’s downside doesn’t end with weight gain: This sweetener is associated with multiple health problems.

ASPARTAME MAY CAUSE A VARIETY OF DISEASES
Since aspartame came on the market in l981, it has accounted for more than 75 percent of the complaints reported in the FDA’s Adverse Reaction Monitoring system. The most common adverse reactions attributed to aspartame are headaches, dizziness, attention difficulties, memory loss, slurred speech and vision problems. This cluster of symptoms has become so common that it is actually referred to as “aspartame disease”.

Even more serious disorders have a suspected link with aspartame. Is it an accident that the incidence of brain tumors has increased by 10% since l975? John W. Olney, MD, of the Washington University Medical School in St. Louis believes there may be a link between the two. In an article published in The Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, he notes that animal studies reveal high levels of brain tumors in aspartame-fed rats. According to Dr. Olney, recent findings show that aspartame has mutagenic (cancer-causing) potential, and the sharp rise in malignant brain tumors coincides with the increased use of aspartame.

Could serious seizures and vision loss somehow be associated with the sweetener? The U.S. Navy and Air Force published articles in Navy Physiology and Flying Safety with this warning: “several researchers have found aspartame can increase the frequency of seizures, or lower the stimulation necessary to induce them. This means a pilot who drinks diet sodas is more susceptible to flicker vertigo, or to flicker-induced epileptic activity. It also means that all pilots are potential victims of sudden memory loss, dizziness during instrument flight, and gradual loss of vision.”

What about multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis, depression and other mood disorders? I have reviewed scores of documented cases of patients with symptoms so severe that they were mistakenly diagnosed with one of these conditions, only to have all signs of disease completely vanish after getting off aspartame.

THE FDA IGNORES SAFETY CONCERNS
Yet the FDA has chosen to turn a deaf ear to repeated requests by scientists, physicians, and consumers to review aspartame’s safety.

Aspartame has spelled trouble from the get-go. The unique property of this chemical, which is 200 times sweeter than sugar, was accidently discovered in l965 by a chemist trying to develop an ulcer drug. Although the FDA rescinded its initial approval because of studies showing that it caused seizures and brain tumors in lab animals, the agency eventually capitulated to political and monetary pressure and in l981 gave aspartame the stamp of approval. In doing so, this bureaucracy overrode the 3-0 decision of a Public Board of Inquiry, which had reviewed the scientific data and had recommended delaying approval pending further studies on the sweetener’s link with brain cancer.

In the intervening years, safety concerns have mushroomed. Ralph G. Walton, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, reviewed all the studies on aspartame and found 166 with relevance for human safety. Every one of the 74 studies funded by the aspartame industry gave it a clean bill of health, while 92 percent of those independently funded revealed safety problems.

ASPARTAME CAN UPSET BRAIN CHEMISTRY
Once you understand a bit about the chemistry of aspartame, you’ll see why it can cause so many problems.

Aspartame is comprised of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Aspartic acid acts as an “excitatory” neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, in the brain, stimulating neurons to fire. Problems can arise when aspartic acid is out of balance with “inhibitory” amino acids that calm things down. Phenylalanine also easily enters the brain, where it is transformed into neurotransmitters that can further interfere with normal brain function.

This is a likely reason why aspartame lowers the threshold for seizures, mood disorders, and other nervous system problems. This altered brain chemistry may also be responsible for the addictive nature of aspartame. Some patients report that getting off diet soda takes more willpower than giving up cigarettes!

A LITTLE MOONSHINE FOR YOU?
The remaining component, which makes up 10 percent of aspartame, may be the most dangerous part. It is a methyl ester that breaks down after ingestion into methanol, a nervous system toxin also known as free methyl alcohol or wood alcohol. Methanol is extremely harmful to the optic nerve. A main ingredient in “moonshine” it was notorious during Prohibition for causing blindness. Methanol is rapidly released into the bloodstream, where it is further metabolized into other harmful components, including formaldehyde (a known neurotoxin and carcinogen) and formic acid (the poison in ant stings).

Is it any wonder that many of the symptoms of “aspartame disease” are neurological and visual? Drinking a diet soda or two (and I’ve had patients who drink at least a liter a day) delivers a powerful chemical rush with decidedly negative effects. With this kind of questionable history, who would want to consume this artificial chemical, particularly when there are natural and healthy sweeteners available?

(The foregoing article is from Dr. Whitaker’s March 2000 vol. 12 No. 3.
You can subscribe to Dr. Whitaker’s Health & Healing by calling 800/539- 8219 or go to Dr. Whitaker - Home Page)

###

My aunt's nick name in school was Pepsi, she would consume it like you wouldnt belive. I think her consumption was similar to what you describe. She wasnt the healthiest woman, she had poor eating habits and smoking for a number of years certainly didnt help. At 62 she died leaving behind her husband, a pregnant daughter and a son.

perhaps diet coke is better but I dont think its doing anything great for your health

I am not a health nut by any stretch of the imagination and I too had a DC "addiction." Or maybe just a habit. Wifey was concerned about my intake, similar to yours.

I began drinking flavored waters since plain water wasn't doing it for me. Worked out great...after a few days I no longer missed the DC...have one occasionally now but really like the water better. I will say this...almost immesdiately I noticed I was able to sleep more soundly...just feel healthier and more alert now. I also lost about 10lbs since I started drinking the water.

YMMV

In college I was drinking about 6 DP a day.

These days I'm down to about 2; coffee is my thing now.

Aspartame and also the 'caramel coloring' are bad stuff.

Water is pretty amazing stuff. When I get on a water kick I too can lose about 5 lbs in a week.

12 to 20 cans IMHO is excessive. You could be setting yourself up for a trip to the cardiologist with heart arrythmias if you keep up that amount of caffeine comsumption.

Was drinking about 4 liters a day.

Also was going for "pipi" all the time. I saw a specialist, they check the "tube" and could not explain why until she saw me with a can of diet coke. She ask me how much of that "crap" I was drinking? I told her and she said that was it.

Never had another Diet Coke since (15 years ago).

Got married 14 years ago, and now I go "pipi" all the time because of the wine I drink... Also did not have a gray hair before I got married.

Feel free to draw your own conclusion... But if it was not for her, I would not be on this board.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave L (Post 4995230)

My aunt's nick name in school was Pepsi,

Dave

Was she from Quebec by any chance?

All this chemical talk made me look at my flavored water ingredients...Sucralose is the sweetener used. Wiki'd it....seems to be relatively safe compare to aspartame:

Sucralose - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I drink way too much diet coke. Lately started drinking coffee in the am, that's helped quite a bit. The thing is, the only way I like coffee is with a splenda.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Martin (Post 4995288)

I drink way too much diet coke. Lately started drinking coffee in the am, that's helped quite a bit. The thing is, the only way I like coffee is with a splenda.

Splenda is sucralose.

My wife is truly addicted to it. No joke.

When I did an experiment and cut her off for one week she had actual withdrawal symptoms. (headaches, etc).

We thought it may be a caffeine withdrawal so she had coffee, tea.....all to no effect.

After the 6th day or so she was all normal again. On the 7th day, she habitually cracked open a can at work. She said it was soooo good. And now we are back to her diet coke habit.

Seriously, i think the aspartame is addictive. It can't be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Martin (Post 4995288)

I drink way too much diet coke. Lately started drinking coffee in the am, that's helped quite a bit. The thing is, the only way I like coffee is with a splenda.

Same here, 3 packet of Splenda per coffee (3 large Tom Horton in the morning)... slightly wired.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJ 911SC (Post 4995280)

Dave

Was she from Quebec by any chance?

Sudbury, close enough SmileWavy

Yeah, Juan; 12-20 cans a day is going to fk you up.

No, really. It's going to fk you up.

For some odd reason

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave L (Post 4995300)

Sudbury, close enough SmileWavy

Pepsi outsell Coke 4 to 1 in Quebec.

You need a lot of "Joe Louis" to go with that... lol

My wife says its fine to drink up to 40 cans a day of Coke...

Pepsi on the other hand is VERY bad for you...

(oh yeah, did i mention the fact that she works in off premise sales for coca cola?)

Thank you guys some REALLY good points here, I do appreciate the feedback and maybe this will help me against this habit, I started this about 5 years ago when I did the Atkins diet ( another bad thing) and never put the can down :rolleyes:

Some of the very good point that you guys mention.

1- Sleep- if I sleep 5 hours thats a lot, I never sleep more than 2 hours in a row due to the fact that I have to go to the toilet, I have been to 5 urologist and the last one was not fun, so maybe this is my first problem all along.

2- Weight gain- I think this has also influence in my weight gain.

3- According to Mama between flipping over in bed like a cheeseburger and the snoring she wont sleep in our room any longer.

how do I kill this habit?

Maybe you could just like .... not drink that crap?
that might solve your problem.

I drink too much diet soda myself. More than 2 liters a day. As a diabetic, it seems that diet soda satisfies my sweet-tooth without the carbs, and is readily available. I suppose that I am addicted to the stuff, and need to cut back.

On days where I don't drink any soda, I get the withdrawl symptoms - headaches, primarily.

I recently read an article on the effect of soft drinks - Link to article.

I guess I need to make a plan to stop drinking this stuff too.... :(

-Z-man.

Quote:

Originally Posted by juan ruiz (Post 4995348)

3- According to Mama between flipping over in bed like a cheeseburger and the snoring she wont sleep in our room any longer.

how do I kill this habit?

Whew, I thought you were talking about killing your wife! ;)

good and timely thread!

drink a lot of DP every day. have tried a few times to get it back to one in the am and one at lunch (and glass of wine with dinner) but it is proving harder than it was quitting the smokey treats many years ago.

my god, give me an ice cold diet pepsi and a menthol on a porch at 7am overlooking a beautiful carribbean vista and i'd likely overdose on contentment.

I really couldn't go cold turkey, either. I started by just having one to get me going in the morning. Switch to flavored water during the day. Maybe allow myself one at lunch and one in the afternoon. None after 5 p.m. I immediately began to sleep better and did not have to get up in the middle of the night to pee.

I then began drinking unsweetened tea for lunch. I also began drinking black coffee in the a.m., limiting myself to one cup mid morning. Gradually I started drinking the flavored waters instead of DC. I kept a number of different flaors in the fridge so I wouldn't get "bored" with them.

Took me about 2 weeks before I weaned myself with no ill side effects. Actually began to feel better almost immediately with just cutting back. I still will have a DC once or twice a week at most. Sometimes I go several weeks without having one.

Basically I just changed my habits and tried to do a variety of healthier beverages to break the only DC habit.

Also...with the flaored waters, I find that I now enjoy plane water whereas before I didn't. And my pecker seems to get much harder now;)

Good luck.

I had a very similar Diet Coke habit and quit a just over a year ago. I replaced it with diet green tea. I've lost 20 lbs and I feel 100% better. I sleep at night and no more snoring (helped to lose the weight). The best side effect though is I used to get colds fairly often, since quitting DC and taking up diet green tea, I never get sick. It must be all those antioxidants in the green tea.

I used to drink a fair amount of soda. At some point, I decided the amount that I was drinking was bad so I started drinking flavored seltzer water. Ingredients, water, carbonation, natural flavor. Now, I don't drink soft drinks at all.

Publix used to have really good flavored seltzer water and used to put 2L bottles on sale for .50 a bottle.

No Publix here in Texas, so I'm stuck with Canada Dry which is OK.

I drink tons of water too but just get the scratch for a diet coke during the day. I've tried to substitute everything I can find, G2, flavored water, you name it. Crystal light was the worst, I think that stuff has more chemicals than diet coke.

My favorite drink is capt and diet, been hooked since college, and that's where I really fall down.

The only pop I drink during an average week is a bit of Diet Coke in the evenings as a mixer with vodka. I hate the taste of any sort of "diet" beverage, but for some reason it works for me as a mixer with vodka. A normal day consists a cup of instant coffee, 8 oz of grape juice and 8 oz of water right before I head out the door for work, then two cups of coffee at work and several glasses of water throughout the day when thirsty and with all meals.

Been working pretty good for me and since the daily grape juice in the mornings starting a few years ago, I have not had a cold or the flu.

Think about it this way- what is GOOD about Diet Cola? Nothing. Its just bs. It serves no purpose, other than taxing your body to process that crap back out of you. Just give it up, deal with the withdrawl for a week, and then enjoy your healthier lifestyle.

Soda is crap.

I drink anywhere between 2 and 6 12oz'ers of Diet Coke or Coke Zero a day......

Juan,

IMO you could start by switching from DC (aspartame) to Coke Zero (sucralose) immediately. and then ween yourself off of it.

Like Whtnkis911 said, that Lipton Diet Green Tea (citrus) is well . . . .. still not good, but it's a great stepping stone. No carbonation, no caramel color, but it does have aspartame.

Do you have any problems with heartburn or acid reflux? I bet you do, huh?

Do you have any problems with heartburn or acid reflux?

I'm good on that dept so far:(

From a few days ago: Diet Sodas May Hurt Kidneys - Shots - NPR's Health Blog Blog : NPR

Quote:

You might want to think twice before gulping down that second diet soda today.

Watch your kidneys, folks. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Researchers analyzing the health habits of thousands of nurses found that women who drank two or more diet sodas daily had a two-fold increase in the risk of a significantly faster drop in their kidneys' ability to filter blood compared with those who drank one or none.

Another analysis by the same pair of Harvard researchers found that eating a lot of salt also hurt kidney's filtering power over time.

"While more study is needed, our research suggests that higher sodium and artificially sweetened beverages are associated with a greater rate of decline in kidney function," Dr. Julie Lin, a kidney specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.

The analysis relied on data from a long-running project called the Nurses' Health Study that gathered all sorts of information about health and food consumption. The study shows an association between diet beverage consumption and decreased kidney function over 11 years but doesn't prove causation.

Still, the data were analyzed to account for other factors--such as high blood pressure, diabetes and physical activity--that could explain the difference. And consumption of sodas sweetened with sugar, juices, punch and iced tea wasn't associated with any unusual decrease in kidney function.

Oh, the study participants were all women and were on the older side--average age of 56 at the start of the study period in 1989. Ninety-seven percent were white. So there are some legitimate questions about how applicable the findings might be to other groups. Still, Dr. Lin told us by phone, "with diet stuff, there is no significant reason to think that people should differ that much."

The findings were presented at a San Diego meeting of kidney specialists over the weekend. There was "a lot of personal reaction," Lin told us, such as the person who said, "I drink five diet sodas a day. Will you be my nephrologist?"

We wanted to know what she thinks might be going on with diet sodas. She's not sure, she said. But if the results can be validated in other human studies, she suspects it may be because diet sweeteners are leading to more kidney scarring over time.

Given the health risks of obesity and the calories packed by sugary drinks, do diet sodas still make sense? "I don't personally recommend drinking sugared or diet soda," she said. "I don't drink either. From a health point of view, they're likely not good for you."

Update: We got permission from the American Society of Nephrology to reproduce the abstracts for the work Lin presented. Click here for the summary about artificially sweetened beverages and here for the more general one about diet and kidney function decline.

Light weights. I down 5-7+ 2 liters a day. When I switched from reg. coke to diet about 15 yrs. ago I just about doubled my intake. I love to drink the stuff, I have a 64oz mug with ice within arms reach all day every day. The last six month I quit smoking all together and quit diet coke @ work. Still drink as much, but water give me bad heartburn from it. A while back I googled kidney thruput and am not even close.

Nothing a little brain cancer won't cure.

I gave up all soft drinks 6 years ago cold turkey and never looked back. I was drinking 2-3 cans of Coke a day on top of 1-2 cups of coffee. It happened when I used to sell SW to fast food companies and we would go on site to install systems in local chains.

I would see women lining up at the drive thru at 6am and order large Diet cokes. The owner laughed when I commented and said it was the fast food and soft drink companies dirty littel secret. He said that the chains pull in millions a year from women addicted to diet coke and that he would see the same women hitting the drive thru in minivans sometimes 2-3 times a day to buy large diet cokes.

Cant imagine what that shtt does to your insides.

I'm close to you Juan--when I stopped drinking alcohol the DC intake went up. I've weened off a bit and drink ice water with real lemon or lime squeezed in it. Homemade iced tea I like too--all the bottled stuff tastes bad to me.

I try on only have 1 can per day. Some days I won't have any, sometimes 2 or 3. It often depends on how busy I am, as I do not drink coffee and will have a Diet Coke to get going when I have to wake up at 4am to study.

Hey, just a quick thanks. I have kicked the habit for over a week now due to this thread.

That stuff is pure poison. I refer to diet drinks as "tomorrows cigarettes." Thanks for giving me the motivation to kick it.
Larry

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gogar (Post 4995640)

IMO you could start by switching from DC (aspartame) to Coke Zero (sucralose) immediately. and then ween yourself off of it.

On your advise, I bought a couple of bottles of Coke Zero, and found the following:

1. The taste is horrible. It is supposed to taste like regular (sugared) Coke, but I'm not seeing it, er tasting it I mean.

2. While Coke Zero does contain sucralose, it also contains aspartame as well. Oh goodie - two chemicals for the price of one!

-Z-man.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Z-man (Post 5022242)

2. While Coke Zero does contain sucralose, it also contains aspartame as well. Oh goodie - two chemicals for the price of one!

-Z-man.

Wow I didn't know that! In that case, why bother, I suppose.