(2/13/2013)

Diet Soda May Be the More Dangerous Alcohol Mixer
ABC News
February 5, 2013

Cutting calories with diet soda may seem like a good idea -- as long as it's not at a bar.  A new study released in the journal Alcoholism suggests that cutting alcoholic drinks with diet soda makes them more potent than using their full-calorie counterparts. Specifically, researchers found that mixing alcohol with diet (sugar-free) soft drinks resulted in a higher breath alcohol content than mixing alcohol with a regular (sugar-sweetened) soft drink. The theory behind this is that sugar-containing drinks stimulate the stomach much like a meal does. Having some food in your stomach delays stomach emptying, thus delaying absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. The result is that drinkers get a less-potent hit of alcohol in their systems after drinking. Diet beverages, since they contain no sugar, do not trigger the stomach to delay emptying, allowing alcohol to reach the bloodstream more quickly.

View the full article here: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/diet-soda-potent-alcohol-mixer/story?id=18411329

Keywords: diet, soda, dangerous, alcohol, mixer