Collegiates are constantly trying to find ways to cut calories and be a little healthier. But no one likes making big sacrifices, so we look for tasty substitutes. When hitting the town and picking our poison each evening, many of us opt for drinks mixed with diet sodas instead of regular in an effort to cut the sugar content.
“I’ve only ever seen girls, never boys, order drinks with diet soda,” Rachel Whiteside, senior at UIUC and a bartender at Joe’s Brewery on campus, said. “I think they use it as a mixer for less calories.”
However, a new study shows that these diet sodas are making us drunker a lot faster. And while this might sound appealing to most college students, it could have some negative repercussions.
A study at Northern Kentucky University found that those who mixed alcohol with diet sodas had a higher breath alcohol content (BrAC) after 3 hours than those who mixed with non-diet drinks. BrAC is different than blood alcohol content (BAC), which is used in some countries to test how intoxicated a person is. In the U.S., police officers use BrAC to test if someone is over the legal limit, which is .08 in all 50 states, according to CNN.
Even though study participants had higher concentrations of alcohol in their systems, that doesn’t mean they were able to recognize it. “One of the key things we found was that even though (BrAC) peaked 18 percent higher in the diet condition, [participants] didn’t feel any more intoxicated and they didn’t feel any different as to how willing they were to drive a car,” Cecile Marczinkski, lead author of the study, told TIME.
This can be extremely dangerous when judging how intoxicated you think you really are. The diet soda does not actually raise the level of intoxication, but rather the lack of sugar in the drink increases the rate of alcohol absorption into the body, making you drunker faster than your regular soda-drinking counterparts.
“If you think you’re doing a better thing by going with the diet mixer, you need to know you may be doing yourself a disservice if you’re getting more drink faster,” Samantha Heller, a clinical nutritionist at the NYU Center for Musculoskeletal Care told HealthDay.
For better calorie-counting drinks, opt for a vodka and water and ask the bartender to add lime juice for some added flavor, Whiteside suggests.
According to Fit Day, for other health conscious drinks ask the bartender for a gin and tonics or even a mojito to switch things up. For the lowest-calorie option of all: sip on some bubbly. At only 85 calories per serving, Fit Day says that champagne is the “healthiest” type of alcohol.
Using diet sodas on your nights out is obviously a way to consume less sugar, but you could potentially be unable to notice your own level of inebriation, which could have detrimental affects on a fun girls night out. Pay attention to how you’re feeling the next time you ask for a rum and diet at the bar.
Photo Source:
http://www.fitsugar.com/Healthiest-Cocktails-Order-Bar-21950983#opening-slide