Healthcare professionals in metabolic clinics have all been subject to the ironic situations in which people with type 2 diabetes INSIST that drinking Diet Soda will instantly kill them and simultaneously plunge the world into nuclear conflict. Meanwhile, their Continuous Glucose Monitors are incessantly beeping at them, begging them to stop drinking the 64-ounce Big Gulps of Regular Dr. Pepper that are inching them closer to metabolic catastrophe with every sip.
Thankfully, the twin powers of persuasion and Ozempic can generally help even the most zealous of soda guzzlers imbibe from a different chalice…but I think it’s worth spending just a few moments discussing the truth about glucose, fructose, and artificial sweeteners…because underneath the Riveting Rind of Biochemistry an even Sweeter Spiritual Simile can be found!
Glucose, in excess, leads to a litany of metabolic issues, and you can read about those in a fun and understandable way in Chapter 1 of “The Home Security System and the Lipid Neighborhood.” But Regular Soda not only contains glucose, but also High Fructose Corn Syrup. And fructose is particularly nefarious. Although it doesn’t elicit an insulinogenic response, fructose transiently “tricks” your body into thinking it has been depleted of energy. Your cells “think” they’re starving, when in fact they are being saturated in a sugary cesspool; ergo, there is no SATIETY SIGNAL and no FEEDBACK INHIBITION. This is why drinking your calories, particularly in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup, is a good way to get fatty liver, fatty heart, and paradoxically be starving in a state of abundance.
Now what about aspartame? Well, if you give rats the equivalent of 40 Diet Sodas per day, they sprout some tumors. But rats sprout tumors anyway…and they sprout them just as quickly (maybe more so) when you give them a bunch of glucose…and many solid organ tumors in humans are “fed” to a certain degree by both insulin and glucose.
But how is aspartame metabolized? Well, it’s broken down into 3 basic things: phenylalanine (an essential amino acid), aspartate (another amino acid), and METHANOL. Oh no! METHANOL rhymes with ETHANOL, and also METH is a bad idea…so that must be the smoking gun!
Well, as usual, the dose makes the poison. And you know what has way more methanol than that can of Diet Soda? An orange. Grapefruit. Certain vegetable juices. And phenylalanine and aspartate are just amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. So those probably aren’t imminently lethal (unless you have a rare disease called phenylketonuria, or PKU). And it’s estimated you would have to drink between 600 and 1700 Diet Sodas at once to die of methanol toxicity. Maybe that methanol isn’t such a big deal unless you’re a rat with an Executive Costco Membership.
So what’s my point with all of this? Am I encouraging you to all drink Diet Soda? No…I personally think Diet Soda is gross and it gives me a headache. But I think that Regular Soda is sort of like the “Prosperity Gospel.” It gives you a temporary dopamine hit, but it can never truly satisfy you…and even though you are “wealthy” by the world’s standards, you are never satisfied and you’re developing spiritual fatty liver and fatty heart of the worst degree.
Diet Soda is like “meditation” or “mindfulness” or “journaling.” These things probably won’t kill you, but unless you are meditating or journaling about the right things, it’s insufficient for optimal well-being. Diet Soda is incapable of making you produce energy…it’s just bubbles. And it’ll probably just lead to you getting a headache from the inherently superficial nature of it all.
So ditch the false “Prosperity Gospel” of Real Soda along with the Fizzy Frivolity of Diet Beverages. You need the pure milk of God’s Word and the eternal Bread of Life to truly be spiritually satisfied😊
