Diet Coke, Pepsi Linked to Bigger Waistlines, Study

Soda and other fizzy drinks have always been known as one of the biggest contributors of weight gain and an unhealthy lifestyle. Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are not an exception.

A study from the University of Texas Health Science Centre at San Antonio revealed that drinking one can of diet fizzy drink a day can increase three inches in waistline width, Express UK said.

Scientists attributed this to the presence of artificial sweeteners that may affect the diversity and ratio of friendly bacteria in the stomach.

"The gut microbiota is like our personal rainforest. If our intestines are like an ecosystem, then could drinking highly acidic drinks like sodas day after day be comparable to acid rain in a real rain rainforest?" Sharon Fowler, the study's author said.

"To borrow from Austin Powers, it's not a 'consequence-free environment'," she added.

Fowler also emphasized that the diet fizzy drinks could 'hyper-active' our sense organs for their 'hyper sweet' nature conditioning our body to release more insulin making to crave more.

Further, this also creates a conditioning in the brain making us think that we are entitled to having a diet drink

A report from the Daily Mail said that the scientist conducted a longitudinal study for nine years examining the number of fizzy drinks the participants have consumed. Also if they consume diet drinks or not.

They used the lifestyles of 749 Mexican-American and European-American people in this entire span of time with 466 participants still surviving in the end of the study.

The participants experienced interviews, follow-up visits and health checks particularly tracking the circumference of their waistlines.

"The increases in abdominal fat were more than three times as great in daily diet soda users as in non-users. This is during the very time in life when increasing waist circumference is associated with increased risk of these serious medical conditions, and mortality itself," Fowler announced.

Such studies are said to have prompted socio-economic groups like U.S. Right to Know from California to file a petition questioning the decision of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to brand such drinks as 'diet', The Seattle Times said.

"Consumers are using products - Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi - that are advertised to make us think they assist in weight loss, when in fact ample scientific evidence suggests that this is not true, and the opposite may well be true," the petition said.

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