- NEW YORK (CBS) --
For many people there's only one real reason to drink diet soda.
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- "Because it's got no calories and, yeah, you try
to watch your weight," says Raymond Tomczak.
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- But, as The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily
Senay reports, some experts are now saying diet soda may be doing the
exact opposite: making them gain weight.
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- Epidemiologist Sharon Fowler, from the University of
Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, presented research data on
soda consumption to the American Diabetes Association.
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- "What we saw was that the more diet sodas a person
drinks, the more weight they were likely to gain," she says.
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- That finding was a big surprise, but it reflected what
nutritionist Melainie Rogers saw in her work with obese patients in New
York.
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- "When we would switch them on to diet soda off regular
soda, we weren't seeing weight loss necessarily, and that was confusing
to us," Rogers says.
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- But why would diet soda make some people gain weight?
There are only theories at this point but it may be as simple as people
consciously eating more because they think they can.
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- Khristianne Corro says, "If I'm having one of those
pig out days, then yeah, I figure maybe it'll balance it out a little
bit."
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- And Tomczak says, "I'm drinking the diet soda and
you know let me have that hamburger and fries, instead of just the hamburger
alone."
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- Researchers say physiology may also play a role.
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- "When I put anything to my stomach that's not water
then my stomach responds by increasing the gastric acid secretion,"
Fowler says. "Does that increase my sense of hunger and does that
drive me to eat more?"
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- If diet soda really doesn't take the weight off, it wouldn't
be the first time a diet product failed to perform as expected.
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- "You know, much the same as when we went through
the fat free craze, people overate not because there was anything
wrong with the products, but they overate," says Rogers, the nutritionist.
"So we're wondering are we seeing a similar phenomenon with the diet
soda."
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- There are still plenty of questions that researchers
need to answer. For instance, are these results associated with all artificial
sweeteners? Or just certain ones?
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- And of course, it's all just a theory until larger controlled
studies can be done, but the early findings are fascinating.
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- In the meantime, there are alternatives for people who
are trying to lose weight.
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- There's juice and water or coffee and tea. Dr. Senay
says the one thing to take away from this is moderation. Whatever you
put in your mouth, don't over do it. A diet product won't really help
you lose weight if you're still getting too many calories from other
foods.
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emilysenay//stories/2001/04/18/utility/main286344.shtml
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