Headaches after diet soda?

[Chefzhat]

Ummmm, like, WOW man. I had a diet soda a couple of hours ago and am now slammed with a huge headache! What the heck?

I have to say, I drink soda only once in a blue moon - I certainly don't remember getting a headache before.

Is this a thing? What is in diet coke that causes headaches?

Debie

[TwinMom]

Do you eat/drink stuff with Nutrasweet very often? Aspartame can cause headaches (among lots of other nasty stuff) in people. Wonder if it's due to that?

Hope you feel better soon!

[funniegrrl]

Some people are sensitive to artificial sweeteners. (I'm not one of them, I drink diet soft drinks all the time.) If you've not had a reaction to this particular drink / sweetener before, though, it could just be a coincidence. Caffeine could also be an issue -- usually it helps headaches, but some people can get rebound headaches from it.

[aggie94]

I get headaches if I drink more caffeine than usual. So if you're not accustomed to having any caffeine, even just one soda might do it for you.

[wallycat]

what they said....

I thought it was like an "ice cream headache" but hours later...it could be ingredients.
Do you take blood pressure meds? The caffeine may increase blood pressure and even though they say BP is "the silent killer" many people get really nasty headaches when the BP goes up.

Hope it is nothing serious...maybe just a weather front and sinus pressure??

[Chefzhat]

I get headaches if I drink more caffeine than usual. So if you're not accustomed to having any caffeine, even just one soda might do it for you.

tee hee hee - have you spent any time with me? Caffeine, all day, every day. :)

I don't think I've had diet soda for a year or so at least. I am guessing that it's the artificial sweetner. I'm gulping water now - hopefully wash my system out!

Ana - no BP medicine. I'm not on anything right now. I have low blood pressure though (really low). Maybe mine shot up??

[aggie94]

tee hee hee - have you spent any time with me? Caffeine, all day, every day. :)

Okay, okay! So then you're like me. :D

In that case, I'd agree that it's probably the artificial sweeteners.

[Andrea_2]

I absolutely get headaches from diet soda, so I never drink them anymore. I don't typically get headaches, but ALWAYS got a severe one any time I had diet soda, so I'm pretty sure it was from that. The headaches would also last a long time. For awhile I wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not. However, I ended up getting a massive headache shortly after drinking a fruit drink which I had no clue had nutrasweet in it. It wasn't until I developed the headache which felt like others I'd had after diet soda that I went to investigate the fruit drink. Sure enough, it had nutrasweet, so I'm convinced that it is real.

[Alethea]

I rarely drink soda (diet or otherwise, carbonation kind of ooks me out), but every time I have a diet soda I get a terrible headache. And the feeling is quite unique; a searing, dry pain behind my eyes and forehead, while most of my headaches are migraines or are diffuse and generalized. FWIW, I also have the "poke-poke-are-you-alive" type of low blood pressure and am a caffeine fiend.

[slknight]

I agree that it's probably the artificial sweeteners. I don't drink diet soda, but I've had the Minute Maid lite pink lemonade a few times from a fountain. I ended up with splitting headaches each time I did it, and finally put two and two together. I avoid artificial stuff like the plague.

[Lrimerman]

Aspartame is a Neurotoxin and can cause headaches (I get massive ones from it). However, many of the drinks are using Sucralose now which is Splenda and it can also cause headaches, but it's most frequent side effect is "the runs" or intestinal distress.

Lisa

[Chefzhat]

FWIW, I also have the "poke-poke-are-you-alive" type of low blood pressure and am a caffeine fiend.

heh. My doc always has to take my BP twice. :) I gotta hope that low pressure is a good thing.

Lisa - so sucralose is the new "sweetener"? Great.

It's a good thing I don't care for diet pop, 'cause I think I've had my last one.

[ChristineVA]

I never got headaches from using artificial sweeteners, but I was having a host of other symptoms. Most notably, I was having bladder irritation. Not like an infection, but I was having urges like I had to pee all the time. This would happen at night or go on for 2-3 days at a time.

What clued me in on this was that one week, my son was home sick from school for a few days and I was home with him. I was bored and tired and I drank hot tea all day sweetened with Nutrasweet. Now I normally would drink this anyway but only 1 cup per day. I was doing 3-4 cups. A few days after that, I got the bladder irritation that lasted for a week. I even went to the doctor thinking I had an infection (I didn't). I quit all Nutrasweet products at that point and have not had these symptoms since. That was about 3 years ago. I was having those symptoms every few months.

[Lrimerman]

I found this article very informative when I first read it several years ago.

Lisa

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/sugarfree_blues.html

[Bawstinn]

I am another one that gets headaches from aspartame. Besides diet soda, yogurt is another one I have to watch out for.

[DmOrtega]

http://www.ahherald.com/health/tyh_010301_diet_soda.htm

At the World Environmental Conference aspartame was suggested to have �critical devastating� effects on the body. Aspartame, marketed as Nutrasweet, Equal and Spoonful, is found in most, if not all, diet sodas. Symptoms such as fibromyalgia, spasms, shooting pains, numbness of the legs, cramps, vertigo, seizures, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), joint pain, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision and memory loss were sighted in conjunction with aspartame consumption. Some doctors believe that methanol poisoning from aspartame mimics multiple sclerosis, leading to mis-diagnosis as MS. Systemic lupus is believed to be another mis-diagnosis of this poisoning. Doctors are finding relief of symptoms when patients are removed from aspartame, yet it is still on the market. There are 92 documented symptoms of aspartame, from comma to death. Birth defects such a mental retardation, have also been linked to aspartame poisoning. The original lab tests resulted in brain tumors in animals.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum recently wrote a bill that would have instituted independent studies, but it was killed by the powerful drug and chemical lobbies. This is just another example of how important it is for consumers to not blindly trust the government or any other organization to always look after the health interest of the consumer. Now days you need to be careful with anything you put into your body, especially things that don�t occur naturally and are generated in a lab or chemical plant. Lots of people, in a well-meaning attempt to reduce their sugar intake, have turned to diet sodas. If you know anyone that has the types of symptoms mentioned above and drinks a lot of diet soda, tell them to speak to a health professional and get the latest information from a non-biased source.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159579,00.html

Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight
Wednesday, June 15, 2005

By Daniel J. DeNoon

People who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows.

The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at this week's annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

"There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain

Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

— 26 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

— 30.4 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

— 32.8 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

— 47.2 percent for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

— 36.5 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

— 37.5 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

— 54.5 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

— 57.1 percent for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41 percent.

Read WebMD's "Soft Drinks: Scapegoat for Kids' Obesity?"

Diet Soda No Smoking Gun

Fowler is quick to note that a study of this kind does not prove that diet soda causes obesity. More likely, she says, it shows that something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity.

"One possible part of the explanation is that people who see they are beginning to gain weight may be more likely to switch from regular to diet soda," Fowler suggests. "But despite their switching, their weight may continue to grow for other reasons. So diet soft-drink use is a marker for overweight and obesity."

Why? Nutrition expert Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, puts it in a nutshell.

"You have to look at what's on your plate, not just what's in your glass," Bonci tells WebMD.

People often mistake diet drinks for diets, says Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nutrition consultant to college and professional sports teams and to the Pittsburgh Ballet.

"A lot of people say, 'I am drinking a diet soft drink because that is better for me. But soft drinks by themselves are not the root of America's obesity problem," she says. "You can't go into a fast-food restaurant and say, 'Oh, it's OK because I had diet soda.' If you don't do anything else but switch to a diet soft drink, you are not going to lose weight."

Read WebMD's "Secret Summer Diet Foods"

The Mad Hatter Theory

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: “It's very easy to take more than nothing." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

There is actually a way that diet drinks could contribute to weight gain, Fowler suggests.

She remembers being struck by the scene in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in which Alice is offended because she is offered tea but is given none — even though she hadn't asked for tea in the first place. So she helps herself to tea and bread and butter.

That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories. Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.

"If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered," Fowler says.

Perhaps, Bonci says, our bodies are smarter than we think.

"People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite."

By Daniel J. DeNoon, reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson, MD

SOURCES: Fowler, S.P. 65th Annual Scientific Sessions, American Diabetes Association, San Diego, June 10-14, 2005; Abstract 1058-P. Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, University of Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine, San Antonio.Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, director, sports nutrition, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. WebMD News: "Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts." http://my.webmd.com/content/article/89/100381.htm Davidson, T.L. International Journal of Obesity, July 2004; vol 28: pp 933-955.

And if you need more information, google; diet soda, headaches.

[leebee]

Count me as another that gets headaches from aspartame. I avoid it. However, I would also like to point out another possible cause of your headache--a strong high pressure system moved through the midwest and is influencing the great lakes areas. I get headaches from such systems, especially if I am having any sort of sinus trouble. So, while I totally agree avoiding diet sodas like the plague is a good thing, it may not have been the/the only cause of a sudden or intense headache. Hope you feel better!