1/17/2024 0 Comments Coke or diet coke caffeinePaulus, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and one of the authors of the study. "Your senses tell you there's something sweet that you're tasting, but your brain tells you, 'Actually, it's not as much of a reward as I expected,'" says Martin P. Functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans revealed that even though both drinks lit up the brain's reward system, the sugar did so more completely. In a 2008 study, for instance, women who drank water that was alternately sweetened with sugar and Splenda couldn't tell the difference - but their brains could. Research suggests that the artificial sweeteners in diet soda (such as aspartame) may prompt people to keep refilling their glass because these fake sugars don't satisfy like the real thing. The psychological components of diet-soda cravings are powerful, but they aren't the whole story. " you stop for gas and always get a diet soda, the craving will start to come first, before you even pull into the station." "You can get into a situation where you crave a diet soda by conditioning yourself," Dr. Similarly, people may get hooked on diet soda because they associate it with a certain activity or behavior, as Bagi did with smoking. Many people who drink diet soda are trying to lose (or keep off) weight by eating healthier, and they may turn to the sweetness of diet soda for comfort as they scale back on sugar, carbohydrates, and other satisfying foods - much like a heroin addict who steps down to Oxycontin, Dr. Trading one addiction or compulsive behavior for another - a phenomenon known as addiction swapping - is a well-known concept in addiction medicine, one that may explain Bagi's experience and that of other heavy diet-soda drinkers. He eventually kicked the smoking habit - but the Diet Pepsi one stuck. "It's all tied to smoking," says Bagi, who smoked a pack a day for 20 years and started drinking diet soda to mask the aftertaste of cigarettes. His Diet Pepsi cravings stem from a prior addiction to nicotine, not caffeine. The 44-year-old graphic designer from Chester Springs, Pa., gets his morning buzz from an enormous cup of coffee, yet he still buys caffeine-free Diet Pepsi by the case and downs six cans a day, "easy." : 12 surprising sources of caffeineĬaffeine can't account for Steve Bagi's habit, however. (A can of Diet Coke contains four to five times less caffeine than a small Starbucks coffee.) Many people who chain-drink diet soda may be caffeine addicts who simply prefer soda to coffee or energy drinks, though diet soda doesn't provide much of a kick by comparison. The simplest explanation for a serious diet-soda habit is caffeine. "Psychologically you're giving yourself permission." Urschel, MD, an addiction psychiatrist in Dallas and the author of Healing the Addicted Brain. "You think, 'Oh, I can drink another one because I'm not getting more calories,'" says Harold C. And unlike sugared soda, which will make you gain weight if you drink too much of it, zero-calorie soda doesn't seem to have an immediate downside that prevents people from overindulging. Although diet soda clearly isn't as addictive as a drug like nicotine, experts say the rituals that surround diet soda and the artificial sweeteners it contains can make some people psychologically - and even physically - dependent on it in ways that mimic more serious addictions. : 25 diet-busting foods you should never eatĪre these diet-soda fiends true addicts? And if so, what are they addicted to? The most obvious answer is caffeine - but that doesn't explain the many die-hard diet drinkers who prefer caffeine-free varieties.įactors besides caffeine are likely at work. Government surveys have found that people who drink diet beverages average more than 26 ounces per day (some drink far more) and that 3% of diet-soda drinkers have at least four daily. Most diet-soda drinkers aren't as gung ho as Talles, but people who down several diet sodas per day are hardly rare. In fact, she says, she buys her 2-liter bottles 10 at a time - more if a hurricane is in the offing - because if she notices she's down to her last one, she panics "like somebody who doesn't have their pack of cigarettes." Replace her ever-present glass of Diet Coke with a cigarette, and she'd make a convincing two-pack-a-day smoker. By the end of the day she has put away about 2 liters. The 61-year-old from Boca Raton, Fla., drinks another Diet Coke in the car on the way to work and keeps a glass nearby "at all times" at her job as a salesclerk. ( ) - First thing every morning, Ellen Talles starts her day by draining a supersize Styrofoam cup filled with Diet Coke and crushed ice.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |