Drinking 3L of Coke every day for ten consecutive years, what happened to this outrageous person?

This man drinking diet cola is my leader’s leader. We call him Brother Qiang.

He does this every day, carrying barrels of Coca-Cola Zero to work, meetings, and clients, and he always keeps three or four barrels of stock under his desk.

About ten years ago, I only drank Coke Zero, about three liters a day.

As someone who cares about his leader as much as I do, I decided to go and ask Brother Qiang in person what he was thinking about drinking like this.

Brother Qiang:

I drink Coke because it allows me to drink more water.

The more I listen to this, the more it seems wrong. Could this be "Coke addiction" or a Coke addiction?

In fact, Brother Qiang is certainly not the only one who drinks Coke like this... You see, there are other more extreme examples.

Well, in this issue, let’s gossip about the addiction to sugar-free happy water.

This is the Everything BB Machine. There is no food in this issue. If you see this, Coca-Cola, remember to send me money!

First of all, sugar-free cola is still a sweet drink, mainly because it contains sweeteners to replace or partially replace sugar.

As a deep lover of Coke, Brother Qiang has accurately memorized the taste changes of several generations of Coke.

Brother Qiang:

At first, there were two types of cola in China: Diet Coke and Clear Coke. Diet Coke was more popular at first. But I think the sugar substitute in Diet Coke has a metallic taste, which is quite different from the taste of cola with sugar.

In order to meet the demand for reducing sugar and balance cost and taste, Coca-Cola has used saccharin and acesulfame potassium in many of its products over the years. The aspartame formula they promoted since 1983 does not have the metallic taste of early sweeteners and is now a widely used main sweetening ingredient.

All of the above sweeteners are artificially synthesized and have passed the safety assessment of the United Nations Food Additives Committee.

There has been a lot of back-and-forth in the toxicology research on them, and there are also speculations that this is a game between the sugar substitute and sugarcane industries to discredit each other.

But no matter what, it is an additive. If you drink too much, there will be problems, right?

Take aspartame for example. The maximum amount of aspartame allowed in carbonated beverages in my country is 600 mg/L. According to this standard, if Brother Qiang drinks 3 liters a day, it will not exceed 1,800 mg. It is indeed not up to the maximum intake recommended by the FDA and ESFA.

However, aspartame is not the only sweetener added to cola.

Just looking at the one or two bottles of water that Brother Qiang drinks every day, which exceeds the normal water requirement of the human body, I always feel that things are not that simple...

Brother Qiang:

After the launch of Zero, I drank mineral water with Zero for a while. Because the price of a two-liter bottle of Coke is almost the same as that of mineral water, so I just drink Coke and rarely drink mineral water now.

I think it's because it has carbonation and carbonated water, so it goes smoother than mineral water when you drink it.

Why is the amount of Coke consumed so large and even getting bigger?

Is it because cola tastes "more refreshing"? Is it because of the caffeine in cola? Or is it simply because people are addicted to sweets?

According to Coca-Cola's public statement, each can of Diet Coke contains 11 mg of caffeine, which is slightly lower than regular sugary cola.

Let's use this ratio to estimate that the cola that Brother Qiang drank should contain only more than 100 mg of caffeine in total, which is similar to the level of a cup of American coffee.

In other words, the caffeine content in sugar-free cola is indeed not that much.

Brother Qiang:

Although I drink so much Coke, I actually don’t like coffee very much. I can’t sleep if I drink even a little bit of coffee.

From this perspective...it seems that Brother Qiang has not developed caffeine tolerance from drinking Coke, nor has he shown any signs of caffeine addiction.

Brother Qiang:

Including before, for various reasons, I didn't drink Coke and only drank water for maybe a month. I didn't see any changes, and there was no addiction reaction.

But why did he choose to continue drinking Coke in the end? I didn't dare to ask more, so I had to look up the information for Qiang. If you don't look it up, you won't know - on the contrary, the sugar substitutes in sugar-free drinks, their potential to trigger addiction is always ignored.

When humans eat sweets and drink sweetened water, the sweet substances stimulate the taste receptors and project signals to the areas of the brain responsible for appetite, physiological reflexes, and energy homeostasis, making you feel mentally happy and physically satisfied - this process is called "food reward stimulation."

The problem is that no matter whether it is artificial or natural sweetener, it is not sugar after all.

There is a study that speculates that sweeteners can activate reward stimuli, but because they have 0 calories or are close to 0 calories, the body cannot obtain the energy feedback brought by sugar and cannot be satisfied.

That is to say, it was fun, but not completely fun.

You will crave more sweetened water and sweets as compensation, but you will never be satisfied. This is why sugar-free drinks make people drink more and more.

Sweeteners are hundreds or thousands of times sweeter than natural sugar. The nerves that sense happiness are constantly stimulated in an ultra-normal way and have become "tough". Once the self-control mechanism is overturned, addiction may become unstoppable.

There was even an experiment that compared sweeteners to cocaine, and guess what, the mice were more addicted to saccharin than to drugs?!

Considering that Brother Qiang has almost never stopped drinking Coke in the past ten years, I decided to let Brother Qiang be a guinea pig and force him to quit drinking for half a month to see what happens.

During the ten days of waiting for Qiang's withdrawal results, I also studied the effects of sweeteners on metabolism.

Because, including Brother Qiang and me, the general intention of many people to choose sugar-free drinks and foods is to avoid the health risks brought by sugar.

But hasn’t Brother Qiang read the news?

What happened to those people who developed diabetes from drinking sugar substitutes?

Brother Qiang:

Some people may have these problems, but that doesn't mean everyone has these problems. I drink so much Coke, and I think I'm healthier, but that doesn't mean I think everyone is healthy.

Since there is already so much news in front of us, it is still necessary to compare the truth.

We all learned in junior high school biology that when you drink ordinary sugary cola, your body absorbs the sugar and causes blood sugar to rise; at this time, the secretion of insulin will help the body's cells consume the sugar in the blood to produce energy and regulate blood sugar to normal levels - this is the process of sugar metabolism.

What about diet cola that uses sweeteners?

Remember the taste receptors we just talked about? In fact, the sweeteners in sugar-free cola also promote insulin secretion and trigger the process of regulating blood sugar.

If you still simply think that sugar substitutes are not sugar anyway, you are really oversimplifying.

Although diet drinks don't directly raise your blood sugar, they are likely to cause you to drink more.

Imagine that the pancreas always receives work messages from sweeteners, thinking that there is work to do, and releases insulin overtime. Over time, the entire project team for processing sugar in the body will be messed up.

From some studies and experiments in recent years, we have also come to the conclusion that continued intake of artificial sweeteners may reduce insulin sensitivity or induce symptoms of "insulin resistance."

Specifically, no matter how much insulin is secreted, it doesn’t work well or even doesn’t work at all. Sugar cannot be consumed normally by cells, and blood sugar continues to accumulate and increase - and these manifestations are already early symptoms of type 2 diabetes.

Brother Qiang:

Is there any definite answer from so much information? Will drinking Zero Degree make you get diabetes sooner or later?

...Not really.

The studies cited above all have their own limitations.

Either the subjects in the experiment are already diabetics; or there is a lack of long-term, continuous health tracking; or there is no explanation for the specific mechanism that causes the symptoms...

Although in 2020, new analysis results were published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, based on 10 years of follow-up and more than 30,000 sets of data, more systematically supported the correlation between consuming sweeteners and suffering from diabetes.

But research is, after all, a process of continuous exploration based on phenomena. And factors such as eating habits and physical differences are diverse and complex.

All we can say is that we can’t just blame the sugar substitutes for our health problems, but they are definitely not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I have already talked so much about the possible risks of sugar substitutes. If you want to be as healthy as possible but still want to eat something sweet, can you still choose and how should you choose sugar-free food and drinks?

For the sake of Qiang Ge’s health, we found the well-known nutritionist Gu Zhongyi:

Brother Qiang uses Zero Degree instead of water every day. Is this OK?

This is certainly not good. Although it has little direct impact on blood sugar, it does not take into account the beneficial bacteria and electrolytes such as phosphorus and sodium.

What is the correct way to drink sugar-free beverages?

The best thing to do is of course not to drink it, and the second best thing is to combine it with an hour of exercise... Just kidding, the most important thing is the quantity. Generally speaking, even if a person consumes 25g of real sugar a day, it will not have much impact. I personally suggest drinking it occasionally, but it is best not to drink it with meals.

Can sugar substitutes completely replace sugar?

For daily cooking and drinking, if I really have to choose between sugar-free drinks and sugary drinks, then for some people whose blood sugar response is obvious, such as those who get acne after eating a little sugar, it is much safer to drink sugar-free drinks. If you must have a little sweetness, I would recommend those that use natural sweeteners, or some prebiotics that contain sweetness, because these ingredients are much healthier.

Over the years, the food industry has created and updated several generations of sweeteners based on the phased trends in public health. The sugar-free food business has become popular, and sugar control and sugar abstinence have become popular.

But in the final analysis, the body can only achieve true satisfaction and energy balance after consuming sweet foods containing calories.

This means that we still haven’t been able to completely “replace” and replicate sugar - we’re just constantly changing our methods to avoid the sugar ingredient that almost everyone is hating.

Most importantly, if you only use sugar substitutes and no sugar, and sugar substitutes are not sugar anyway, you can use them as an excuse to ignore the health costs, and you feel that you can let yourself go when you see the label says "0 sugar". We think this is no different from ostrich behavior.

This is the All Things BB Machine... Wait a minute, so many days have passed, how is Brother Qiang doing with his withdrawal?

Brother Qiang:

To be honest, I've been drinking Coke these days, but I guarantee that I finished the bottle of water you gave me last time. Buying water is too troublesome. Coke is still more delicious.

Editor: Zhang Maichong needs to control sugar

Director: Tadpole chewing wax

Animation: Coco-Cola

Storyboard: Fish and Rain

Appearance: Zhang Maichong/007 Li

Voiced by: Zhang Maichong

Art Director: Face Slapper

Consultant: Nutritionist Gu Zhongyi

Layout: Xiaoman

References:

【1】National Food Safety Standard-Food Additive Usage Standard/GB 2760-2014

【2】Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016) / Chinese Nutrition Society

【3】I Was Powerless Over Diet Coke / cn.NYTimes

【4】Caffeine content for coffee, tea, soda and more / Mayo Clinic

【5】AMOUNTS OF SWEETENERS IN POPULAR DIET SODAS / Diabetes Self-management

【6】Lisa Conti / Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain; May Lead to Diet Disaster / Scientific America

【7】Magalie Lenoir / Intense sweetness surpasses cocaine reward / PLoS One. 2007.

【8】Anni Laffitte / Functional roles of the sweet taste receptor in oral and extraoral tissues / Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2014.

【9】Kushagra Mathur / Effect of artificial sweeteners on insulin resistance among type-2 diabetes mellitus patients / J Family Med Prim Care. 2020.

【10】Alonso Romo-Romo / Sucralose decreases insulin sensitivity in healthy subjects: a randomized controlled trial / Am J Clin Nutr. 2018.

【11】Pei Qin / Sugar and artificially sweetened beverages and risk of type 2 diabetes...: a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies / Eur J Epidemiol. 2020.

【12】Liu Xing, Meng Yong, et al. / Basic characteristics of common artificial sweeteners in food and their effects on physiological metabolism / Journal of Food Safety and Quality. 2021.

【13】Hong Xu / Different functional roles of T1R subunits in the heteromeric taste receptors / PNAS. 2004.

【14】Susan E. Swithers / Experience with the high-intensity sweetener saccharin impairs glucose homeostasis and GLP-1 release in rats / Behav Brain Res. 2012.

BB Machine