“Can I order a double cheeseburger, large fries and a large Diet Coke?” I hear this request at fast food restaurants almost every time I'm in line. The irony of washing down a calorie-dense meal with a NutraSweet-flavored fizzy liquid makes me wonder why they don't just order regular soda. Although consuming diet soda can shave a few hundred calories off your diet, current research suggests that diet soda does not effectively help people reduce calories or lose weight since the chemical properties of artificial sweeteners can actually promote the gain weight gain and other health complications. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Mostly, artificial sweeteners do not serve as truly effective substitutes for sugar. The body craves real sugar in the form of sucrose or fructose because sugar provides a source of energy to the body. From an evolutionary perspective, it is adaptive and advantageous to enjoy the taste of sugar-containing foods because sugar is converted into energy and energy sustains the life of the organism. This is why, simply put, people like sweet food. In fact, they love it so much that the soda industry pours over 35 grams of sugar per can into their soft drinks and can sell over a billion cans per day according to Coca Cola's website. To provide a guilt-free alternative to sugary soft drinks, these companies have used artificial sweeteners as substitutes for the sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup traditionally added to sodas. Artificial sweeteners like NutraSweet, Equal, Sweet and Low, and Splenda are mixtures of chemicals like sucralose, saccharin, and aspartame that taste sweet to the tongue, but aren't digested by the body and therefore don't add calories. While it may seem like a “sweet” idea to save hundreds of unnecessary calories by opting for a diet soda, current research suggests that simply substituting isn't that simple. According to Sarah Hill, study author and psychologist at Texas Christian University who has conducted extensive research on artificial sweeteners and their effects, the artificial sweeteners in diet soda do not help reduce calories in the long term. He tells Time Magazine the following chain of events surrounding diet soft drink consumption: At first glance you get a nice sweet taste without the calories, but my research shows it could lead to cognitive changes that could promote excessive consumption later. When you have that unnatural combination of sweetness and no increase in energy, it leads the body to perceive an energy crisis. It triggers thoughts and behaviors consistent with a scarcity mode. (Hill 1) The above scenario describes a sort of red herring for the body. The body senses the presence of something beneficial (in the case of a red herring, an investigative bloodhound smells the pungent odor of a herring on the trail), becomes excited, and then discovers that there was no energy source (or clues). indicating the presence of a suspect). In response, both the body and the detective sleuth begin to panic. What Hill means by “scarcity mode” is that the body does everything it can to survive. Stress hormones increase significantly, the digestive system slows down, and the immune system is temporarily suppressed. It is for this reason that many people have reported hand tremors and irritability after consuming diet soda. While the body tries to keep itself in?