Do Diet Drinks Help People Lose Weight?
There’s been considerable debate about whether or not diet drinks “work,” but new clinical trial evidence suggests diet beverages do indeed help people lose weight. The complete findings will appear in the June issue of the journal Obesity.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center in Aurora, Colo.,and Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education, in Philadelphia, conducted the prospective, randomized trial to measure the impact of consuming diet beverages on weight loss as part of a treatment program focused on diet and exercise.
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“These results confirm definitively that drinking diet beverages can help people lose weight and that people should not be discouraged from drinking diet beverages for fear of undermining their weight loss efforts,” the researchers say. “This study also suggests that drinking diet beverages may help dieters feel less hungry.”
The 12-week clinical study included 303 participants, who were randomly assigned to one of two groups—those who were allowed to drink diet beverages, such as diet sodas, teas, and flavored waters, or a control group that drank water only.
The water group agreed to drink at least 24 ounces of water daily. They could eat food that contained low-calorie sweeteners, but agreed not to drink diet beverages or put sugar substitutes in their coffee, tea, or other beverages. The diet beverage group agreed to drink at least 24 ounces of diet beverages per day. Both groups followed the same diet and exercise program for 12 weeks.
While there’s also been considerable controversy about the safety of diet beverages in recent years, that issue was outside the scope of this study. “The study only examined if diet beverages are effective with weight loss, because the safety of the low-calorie sweeteners in diet beverages is well documented by research and regulatory review worldwide,” the study authors explain.
Participants in the diet beverage group lost an average of 13 pounds—44% more than the control group, which lost an average of 9 pounds during the same period. In addition, 64% of the participants in the diet beverage group lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared with just 44% of the water group.
The researchers also documented additional benefits in the diet drink group. “Diet beverage participants had almost twice the reduction of total blood triglycerides, a factor linked to higher risk of heart disease, compared to the water group,” the study authors say. “They also had a two-fold greater reduction in blood levels of low-density lipoprotein—the so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol that is linked to heart disease—than those in the water group. “
Both diet soda and water groups saw reductions in waist circumference and blood pressure, but the diet beverage group reported feeling significantly less hungry during the 12-week weight loss program than those in the group that drank water only.
—Colleen Mullarkey
Reference
Peters JC, Wyatt HR, Foster GD, Pan Z, Wojtanowski AC, Vander Veur SS, et al. The effects of water and non-nutritive sweetened beverages on weight loss during a 12-week weight loss treatment program. Obesity. 2014 Jun;22(6):1415-2