Is Diet Coke Bad
Diet Coke was introduced in the eighties of the twentieth century as a healthy and sugar free alternative to Coca-Cola. The movement went towards low carbohydrate diets and it was very trendy to provide a sugar free product. In the first year it was sweetened with cyclamates, afterwards this was changed, because cyclamates were banned from use in the United States and feature now aspartame and acesulfame potassium.
Like with any product, too much of it is not healthy. If you eat too much of a 100% natural and organic product, like ten kilogram of apples, you will feel sick, besides getting into the Guinness Book of Records. But rumors and claims that Diet Coke is bad for health persist. Is there any truth to this claim?
Most people and scientists come up with the same answer, and that is aspartame. There is a claim that the whole industry of soft drinks opposed the approval of aspartame by the Food and Drug Administration, including the Coca-Cola Company. Upon ingestion it breaks down in several very toxic chemicals, methanol, formaldehyde and formic acid. Methanol in very low doses causes, with aid of formic acid it works faster, blindness, because it attacks the optic nerve and causes irreparable damage. Formaldehyde is known to cause cancer, among other effects, and when it is found in any food, then that food is deemed contaminated and unsuitable for ingestion, whereby the amount of contamination is irrelevant.
It is not known why aspartame was ever approved by the FDA and why cyclamates were banned, when in comparison cyclamates are much less dangerous. The low production costs of aspartame may have been an issue and corruption seems to be one of the reasons, but there is no sufficient public outcry available, in order to warrant a senate investigation.
Phenylalanine, sometimes mistakenly named phenylanine, is not really toxic per se, but it is believed to have analgesic and antidepressant effects. It is a close relative, structure wise, to adrenaline and dopamine, which would somewhat explain the additive effect of Diet Coke.
The adverse effects of Diet Coke to a diet regime have been widely reported of late, providing evidence that people who drink Diet Coke while dieting fail to lose weight. The reasons are most commonly referred to the fake sugar effect, leading to cravings, but some dieting professionals strongly oppose this statement. They state that when they changed their diet only by adding Diet Coke to their diet and nothing else, they stopped losing weight and started gaining. The reasons for this phenomenon have not been scientifically explained as of yet.