Diet Soda, bad for you ?

[netdiver]

Diet Coke junkie here. Been drinking them hard for 30 years. Drinking about a gallon a day. Quit cold turkey Jan 6 2009. I hurt so bad for days afterwards it made me realize that the stuff had serious side effect. Now I am off it and glad I did it.

Now drinking about a gallon of beer....

I'm pretty sure that your "hurt so bad" was the withdrawal symptoms from your drug addiction. In this case, the drug was caffeine.

I don't think this was an issue with diet soda specifically.

 

[1_T_Submariner]

Beer, Water, Coffee all natural that you.

 

[Deep-6]

I recommend the Arizona Arnold Palmer Lite 1/2 Iced Tea, 1/2 Lemonade. My buddy got me started on it. The stuff is amazing. It's like crack in a can.

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

For someone who has experienced side effects of it's use, I guess it was literally in my head right? How many medications have been brought to market and then were pulled due to severe side effects and sometimes death? There is alot of money in the diet industry and alot of hands in that pot. I wouldn't blow it off as a hoax so easily.
History of Aspartame | www.DORway.com

If you have never had any problems with the stuff..hey you are a lucky person. Since new products have come on the market that do not contain aspartame, it has been an easier road for me to find alternatives. I wouldn't wish the kind of headaches I used to have on anyone.

Have a good one y'all!
Carolyn:shark2:

 

[Deep-6]

Hey Sharks, Can you have Splenda?

 

[Hoomi]

In most of these types of stories, there is typically a little bit of truth that is blown out of proportion by someone.

Does aspartame have some side effects on some people? Yes. Are they as extensive and dangerous as the OP made it sound? No.

Should the FDA crack down on it? Frankly, the focus on such things is so skewed as to be almost comical, were it not so totally twisted that people's lives are affected every day by it. Think about it; liquor has a long list of well-documented health dangers, and is not only legal, it's treated almost like a cultural requirement for adult social interaction. Tobacco, likewise, would never make it on the market were it a new product introduced today, with the kinds of health risks it carries, and yet marijuana, which not only doesn't have such detrimental effects - and, in fact, has been demonstrated to have positive effects in medical use - is illegal.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating a return to Prohibition and I do not support the cumulative "sin taxes" they keep passing on tobacco. I've never drank, never smoked (anything, either legal or not), and at almost fifty years old, I don't have any desire to start. I also don't have this big desire to play nanny on everyone else's health and well-being. If someone wants to smoke or drink, that's their business, not mine.

If someone wants to avoid aspartame, or if they want to suck down 3 liters of diet soda every day, then that's their choice.

 

[netdiver]

If someone wants to avoid aspartame, or if they want to suck down 3 liters of diet soda every day, then that's their choice.

I agree.

However, I do rely upon the FDA to let me know that cigarettes, alcohol, and anything else <maybe an artificial sweetener?> do have known health issues or risks so I can make an informed choice to consume them or not.

 

[cloudswinger]

I agree.

However, I do rely upon the FDA to let me know that cigarettes, alcohol, and anything else <maybe an artificial sweetener?> do have known health issues or risks so I can make an informed choice to consume them or not.

How long was it before the FDA required labels warning of the danger of cigarettes? They knew at least 20 years before labeling became common place.

Products with aspartame do come with a warning, for phenylketonurics. Every chemical, natural or not, comes with risks. There are people allergic to wheat, egg, soy and dairy, at least one of which is in every processed food product. That's why there are warnings now about those things on the labels. We've messed so many things up that we've started to become intolerant of the foods we eat. On top of that, can you imagine that there would be a penguin allergic to fish bones? There's one in the Central Park zoo that's hand fed fish fillets. That bird would be dead in the wild.

 

[vladimir]

The worst thing about diet soda--and artificially sweetened "food" in general--is that it doesn't help anybody lose weight. If you're going to be fat anyway, you might as well enjoy the taste of real sugar (assuming you can find food that's made with real sugar, rather than high-fructose corn syrup).

 

[Steve50]

Was it George Carlin that had the routine, "The Surgeon General has determined that saliva, when swallowed in small quantities over long periods of time, is hazardous to your health"?

Baseball players should live forever...