by Laura Schocker reposted from the HuffingtonPost.com
As a health editor, I really do try to practice what I preach. I walk up escalators. I don't smoke. I get off the subway a few stops early to get more exercise in each morning. And I try not to drink my calories (unless it's a glass of wine -- that's healthy, right?).
I thought that was enough. But over the past year, I've learned that Diet Coke, my calorie-free drink of choice, may be doing more harm than I thought. A study last summer presented at an American Diabetes Association meeting suggested an association between diet soda and a wider waist. A second, unrelated study found that aspartame -- the artificial sweetener found in most diet soft drinks -- raises blood sugar in mice prone to diabetes, with possible implications for humans as well. And just yesterday, we heard word that a diet soda a day is linked with an increased risk of stroke and heart attack (findings that were also presented last year at the International Stroke Conference).
"They may be free of calories but not of consequences," Helen P. Hazuda, Ph.D., an author on the first study and a professor and chief of clinical epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio's School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Uh oh -- my "light" choice has turned into a vice.
While I've long suspected that a bottle full of chemicals is likely not as healthy as a glass of pure H20 (the ingredient list, including aspartame, caramel coloring and phosphoric acid, was a tip off), I've never considered it to be a real risk.
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