Artificially Sweetened Products May be the Source of Your Anxiety

A recently published study reveals how diet products like diet soda and the other 5,000 artificially sweetened products that are available on the market can tip off your anxiety switch. Ever wondered why you feel anxious or find your anxiety getting worse, especially after emptying that can of diet soda? A new study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looks into whether drinking diet Coke makes people more anxious.

Diet soda is a constant source of amusement for psychologists and neurobiologists. Previous studies have connected drinking it to a slew of negative outcomes, most notably weight gain. Soon after the weight gain discoveries, Coke Zero was created (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
An In-Depth Exploration of Knowledge and Beliefs Associated with Soda and Diet Soda Consumption

Go to source).

Aspartame, an artificial sweetener prevalent in nearly 5,000 diet goods and drinks, has been related to anxiety-like behaviour in rats, according to researchers at Florida State University College of Medicine.

Aside from causing anxiety in the mice fed aspartame, the sweetener's effects extended up to two generations in the males exposed to it.

"What this study shows is that we need to look back at environmental factors because what we see today is not only what is happening today, but what happened two generations ago and possibly even longer," said co-author Pradeep Bhide, the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience in the Department of Biomedical Sciences.

The study was inspired in part by prior Bhide Lab research on the trans-generational effects of nicotine on mice. The study discovered transient, or epigenetic, modifications in mouse sperm cells. In contrast to genetic changes (mutations), epigenetic alterations are reversible and do not alter the DNA sequence; instead, they can alter how the body reads a DNA sequence.

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"We were studying the effects of nicotine on the same model," Bhide explained. "The father is a smoker." "What happened to the kids?"

Aspartame was approved as a sweetener by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. Each year, roughly 5,000 metric tonnes are produced. When aspartame is consumed, it breaks down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol, all of which can have serious effects on the central nervous system.

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The study, led by Ph.D. candidate Sara Jones, involved giving mice drinking water laced with aspartame at around 15% of the FDA-approved maximum daily human intake. The dosage, equivalent to six to eight 8-ounce cans of diet Coke per day for people, was maintained for 12 weeks in a four-year trial.

Anxiety-like behavior was reported in mice throughout numerous generations descending from aspartame-exposed males using a variety of maze tests.

"It was such a robust anxiety-like trait that I don’t think any of us anticipated we would see it," Jones said. "It was completely unexpected. Usually, you see subtle changes".

When mice of all generations were given diazepam, a medicine used to treat anxiety disorders in people, they stopped acting anxiously.

The researchers behind this study are working on another paper that will look at how aspartame affects memory. Future research will concentrate on identifying the molecular processes that govern the transfer of aspartame's effect across generations.

Deirdre McCarthy, Cynthia Vied, and Gregg Stanwood of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, as well as Chris Schatschneider of the FSU Department of Psychology, were also co-authors.

The Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Chair Fund at Florida State University and the Bryan Robinson Foundation provided funding for this study.

What Effect does Diet Coke have on our Brain?

The authors of the study hypothesized that higher blood glucose levels offer the mental juice for our brains to be more future-oriented, which is why diet soda drinkers did not defer satisfaction. This could be because imagining the future, in all its hazy abstraction, consumes more mental energy than watching the actual here and now.

So, when someone drinks a diet Coke, which is meant to fool the brain into believing it's getting a nice dosage of sugar, the brain expects an energy boost. When it never arrives, panic alarms sound. The brain interprets a lack of blood glucose as a calorie deficiency, and the body is given free rein to get what it requires. Delaying gratification will be difficult under certain circumstances (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Sugar Beverages and Dietary Sodas Impact on Brain Health: A Mini Literature Review

Go to source).

The conclusion here is not to switch to regular soda instead of diet soda—it is to avoid drinking soda or any other sugary or artificially sweetened liquids. The actual problem in this study isn't diet soda; it's the irregular changes in blood glucose levels produced by eating too much sugar or compounds that act like sugar. In theory, reducing glucose highs and lows will improve decision-making and prevent anxiety.

References:

1. An In-Depth Exploration of Knowledge and Beliefs Associated with Soda and Diet Soda Consumption - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551593/)
2. Sugar Beverages and Dietary Sodas Impact on Brain Health: A Mini Literature Review - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30094113/)

Source-Medindia