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Could diet sodas make you gain weight?

Posted at 8:22 AM, Jul 09, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-09 09:25:26-04

(KPRC) You may think you're doing everything right opting for diet sodas instead of sugary ones. However, diet sodas may be to blame for weight gain because the sweeteners could be tricking your body.

Dr. John Higgins, a Univerity of Texas Health cardiologist, said they're bad for you because diet sodas can still make your insulin spike (just like sugar). 

This is potentially dangerous for diabetics, and for everyone else it's similar to eating high sugar or starchy foods, even though there's no sugar in the drinks. When your body makes too much insulin, it will stop burning fat until you lower your insulin levels.

"We know that both regular soda, which has lots of sugar in it and diet sodas, which while they don't have the same sugar in them, studies have actually shown that individuals who drink more diet sodas actually gain more weight because it has to do with the aftertaste and after effects of the diet soda. It gives them a temporary fill but it actually affects their insulin and other systems and they actually get hungrier later," Higgins says.

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