DIET fizzy drinks can actually make you GAIN weight rather than lose it, a study has found.
Sucralose, which is found in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, can increase food cravings and appetites in overweight women as well as in other soft drinks.
It was not found to have the same effect on men of a healthy weight.
Researcher Professor Kathleen Page said: “Drinking artificially sweetened drinks may trick the brain into feeling hungry, which may in turn result in more calories being consumed.”
However, Gavin Partington, director of the British Soft Drinks Association, said the study should be “treated with caution” because it was based on a “tiny” number of participants.
He said: “Non-sugar sweeteners are safe according to all leading health authorities in the world, and that’s why they are used in a vast array of food, medicine, dental and drinks products.
“Their use enabled soft drinks manufacturers to reduce take-home sugar from soft drinks by 43.5 per cent between March 2014 and March 2020.”
Sucralose, also known as Splenda, is 600 times sweeter than sugar and calorie-free.
Professor Page, Los Angeles-based, said that although many people use it to lose weight, it has been linked with type 2 diabetes.
Other studies have shown that it also damages gut bacteria.
The study concluded that diet drinks are not better for health than sugary varieties.
Drinking artificially sweetened drinks “raises your risk of dying young” with consumers more likely to die from heart disease, researchers found.
Zhengzhou University, China, tracked more than 1.2 million adults for more than 20 years in order to discover more about their soft drink consumption.
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