Body & Fitness

How Donald Trump’s excessive Diet Coke consumption might affect his health

Donald Trump apparently drinks 12 Diet Cokes a day, which only has negative consequences for the body.

It seems Donald Trump‘s every move is recorded and scrutinised on the internet these days – from his ‘just-thinking-out-loud’ comments to his (at times) aggressive tweets.

Nothing seems to be off-limits when it comes to the 45th President of the United States. Which is why when The New York Times published a lengthy story detailing what life inside the White House is like, we were intrigued.

The piece details interesting revelations from some of the president’s top advisors – including Trump’s inability to handle being excluded from the news for more than a couple of days and his advice for his aides to ‘think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show’.

Snippets of Trump’s unhealthy habits also came to light.

Turns out in addition to watching an estimated four to eight hours of TV a day, apparently Trump also drinks 12 Diet Cokes.

Surprising news considering Trump once claimed on Twitter that he had ‘never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke’.

Trump might want to reduce his intake of the sweetened beverage: the consumption of diet soda has been linked to a slew of negative health consequences.

According to a press release published by the American Academy of Neurology, diet drinks are associated with an increased risk of depression in adults.

The research is based on a study that looked at the drinking habits of 263,925 people.

Results suggested that participants who consumed more than four cans of soda per day were 30 per cent more likely to develop depression than those who didn’t drink soda, and the risk appeared to be even higher for those who drank diet rather than regular soda.

Study author Honglei Chen says sweetened beverages have important physical and mental consequences.

“Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk,” says Chen.

While the mental health implications of poor nutrition is currently making waves, the physical consequences of sugary beverages has long been discussed.

Links have been found between diet soda consumption and increased visceral/belly fat (fat that sits around the organs), an enlarged waistline circumference, weight gain, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

A study published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, says diet drinks that are low-calorie but high in sugar ironically lead to weight gain.

In the piece, Professor Susan Swither says: “Frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have the counterintuitive effect of inducing metabolic derangements.

“The concern that these non-caloric sweeteners might not be healthy is a message that many people do not want to hear, especially as the prevalence of artificial sweeteners increases.”

As if Trump needed another reason to give Diet Coke a miss, recent research from the University of Boston has suggested that frequently consuming sugary drinks can lead to smaller brain volume and a smaller hippocampus (associated with memory and spatial navigation).

It’s also been reported that those who consume diet soda daily are three times more likely to develop dementia or have a stroke.

We’re think water is looking pretty great right about now, Mr President…

Related stories