Diet Coke Just As Helpful To Weight Loss As Water When Used In Place Of Sugary Beverages
Unsurprisingly of course
From the Journal of This Shouldn’t Be Remotely Surprising comes a randomized controlled trial of people in a behavioural weight loss program who were assigned to either zero-calorie water or zero-calorie artificially sweetened beverages in place of caloric beverages in terms of weight loss.
Breathless coverage of non-nutritive sweeteners’ (NNS) supposed evils certainly have many believing that somehow they hinder weight loss or even lead to weight gain.
Of course the studies suggesting that tend to be all comer studies that look at the association between NNS use and weight (or other health related outcomes) and while some may try to control for various confounders, really aren’t capable of answering whether NNS hinder weight management efforts, nor offer any plausible mechanism as to how they might.
But back to this study, no NNS did not hinder weight loss of participants of a behavioural weight loss program (a result in line with other randomized trials of same on populations actively trying to manage their weights), and, unsurprisingly, their purposeful substitution for sugary beverages had the same impact as water’s substitution.
Less sweet from all sources is a reasonable goal, but the demonization of NNS in the context of weight management is misguided and if using diet sodas helps you to reduce your intake of sugary beverages, that’s a good thing.
Have a great weekend!
I’m not surprised.
I’ve been reading some anti-diet culture books and while I want to believe that I can eat what I want to, I am concerned about my weight. IDK. So much “food control” out there. How do I make peace with food?