Study: Diet drinks play role in successful weight loss

A new study claims diet soda drinkers lose more weight than those who drank only water while trying to shed pounds.

In March, the Wall Street Journal reported sales of diet soda, which represents nearly a third of the U.S. beverage industry, declined for the third year in a row.

The most recent study was funded by the American Beverage Association, whose contributors include Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

“(The study) was funded by the American Beverage Association. We’re extremely happy they did it and I think ethically they should be doing these kinds of studies. But the data is out there for anybody to examine. So look at the data – if the funding source bothers you, get beyond that and look at to see if the study was well done,” says Dr. James Hill.

Hill is with the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, which conducted the study.

They split 303 people into two groups. One group could drink diet sodas during their weight loss journey and the other group had to stick to water.

“Over 12 weeks, the weight loss period, both groups did exceptionally well and lost significant amounts of weight. But those consuming diet sodas actually lost more weight than those who drank water alone,” says Hill.

According to Hill, there’s nothing in diet sodas that help you lose weight and that the weight loss happened because humans need to satisfy their sweet tooth.

“What you’re doing is giving people the sweet taste and humans just innately like sweet tastes. So by giving people the sweet tastes without the calories, we think people are better able to adhere to a diet where they’re consuming less food than they’d like to consume,” Hill says.

But what about the reports that the caramel color and aspartame – the artificial sweetener – in diet sodas are bad for your health?

“We didn’t look at that. I leave that to the Food and Drug Administration that regulates that. They’ve said that these things are safe for consumption and they are far more knowledgeable with that than I am,” Hill says.

While the American Cancer Society continues to examine the possible link between long-term aspartame and cancer, the FDA does not advise against consuming it.

Can we really draw a conclusion for everyone that diet sodas aid in weight loss when only 150 people in this study found success?

Hill says we can. “This is the strongest study that’s ever been done to look at this. The results were very clear that diet sodas are OK when it comes to weight loss.”

Hill admits that water is the best drink for you, but if you must have something sweet his study found diet soda can do the trick.

“Diet sodas are just one tool, there are lots of other things, so we’re really strongly studying the importance of physical activity, the importance of the right mental attitude,” he says. “Diet sodas alone isn’t going to cause you to be successful, we’re just saying it’s an okay tool if you want to use it but you’ve gotta do a lot of other things to create a lifestyle that keeps the weight off.”

Hill would now like to continue to follow his study participants to see the long-term effects of drinking diet soda while dieting to see if it continues to help.