• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Diet and sugar free drinks

D

Dignity2020

Newbie
Messages
3
In our Christmas sermon the priest said avoid drinks labelled diet as the sugar in them was chemically created. Therefore the brain was not alerted you were full whereas real sugar triggered such an alarm. Does this apply to diabetics?
 
Dignity2020 said:
In our Christmas sermon the priest said avoid drinks labelled diet as the sugar in them was chemically created. Therefore the brain was not alerted you were full whereas real sugar triggered such an alarm. Does this apply to diabetics?
Click to expand...
I have read this sort of claim elsewhere. Something like it was very commonly seen on social media a few years ago.

As I understand it, there is no sugar - usually sucrose, but possibly glucose/fructose etc - in "diet" or "zero sugar" drinks - by definition they are designed to be sugar-free. There is sweetness, which is usually produced by one or other artificial sweeteners. Some people report BG rises after consuming these but I am not entirely sure that it's been shown that the rise is due only to the sweetener and nothing else. I've never noticed any associated rise personally - this in itself is not unusual. Carbohydrates typically affect people's blood sugars differently at different times.

I've never seen anything that suggests that (eg) sucrose, glucose or fructose trigger a satiety signal - quite the reverse.

Not sure what you mean by "does this apply to diabetics" - if it's Type 2, the issue isn't consuming sucrose versus consuming sweeteners, it's insulin resistance. Carbohydrates consumed are broken down to glucose by digestion. T2s like me cannot handle carbohydrates, of which sucrose is only one. I might have misunderstood your question. Are you diabetic yourself?
 
Real sugar doesn't trigger a fullness alarm, particularly where drinks are concerned. Diet drinks will not make you feel full, and neither will sugar drinks. The difference is that diet drinks are often zero calorie, and much less immediately damaging in terms of spiking blood sugar.
Your priest may have a point that diet drinks are best avoided, but for T2 diabetics, the vast majority of diet drinks will at least be safer than their full sugar counterparts. I'd rather drink coke zero than regular coke, or organic orange juice for that matter.
 
I have a slightly different twist on the views expressed above.
That is that there is some evidence (in the general population, not just T2 diabetics) that the sweetness in a diet/no sugar drink fools the brain into expecting a glucose rush which them doesn't materialise.
This leads to a much stronger craving for sugar and/or carbs which means that for at least some (probably quite few) people consuming diet drinks, they actually consume more carbs (and more calories) when drinking the diet version than when they drink the normal sugar version of the drink.
 
@Dignity2020

The first drink I had this morning was a white coffee with sweetener the second was a black coffee unsweetened the sweetener in my first coffee gave me no cravings for sugar or sweetener and sweeteners do not effect my blood sugars at all.

Would your preist like me to come and give him some scriptural lessons or preach his next sermon on his behalf mayhap.
 
Back
Top