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You Are What You Drink
By N. Saini M.D.
When it comes to gaining weight, perhaps "you are what
you eat" doesn't matter as much as "you are what you drink."
Slurping soda piles on more pounds than scarfing down
the same number of calories in solid food. According to
a study published last year in the International Journal
of Obesity, people who drink their excess calories do
not compensate for it as well as people who consume the
extra calories in food.
Study authors D.P. DiMeglio, PhD, and Richard D. Mattes,
PhD, of the department of foods and nutrition at Purdue
University in West Lafayette, Ind., proved this in a study
of 15 healthy men and women. In the first part of the
study, each person consumed an extra 450 calories of either
jelly beans or soda each day for four weeks. Four weeks
later, those on the jelly bean diet switched to the soda
diet for another four weeks, and those on the soda diet
switched to the jelly bean diet.
When eating the jelly beans, all 15 people in the study
decreased their intake of other calories to compensate
for the jelly beans, so their total daily calorie consumption
was close to what it would have been normally. As a result,
they gained only a small, insignificant amount of weight.
But they made no changes in their regular calorie consumption
when they drank the soda. Not surprisingly, this led to
a significant weight gain.
The increase in beverage consumption is "an index of how
our diet is changing," Mattes says. "If we're going to
drink large amounts of beverages, we have to adjust our
diet [by eating less]. However, substituting water, diet
soda, or unsweetened coffee or tea might be the best approach."
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