Diet Fizzy Drinks and DCS

[drunkdiver]

Seeing that is another thread talking about diet drinks I was wondering what people thought about this.

Reading the amazing Ocean Gladiators, Mark Elliot states that diet drinks and deep diving are a bad idea and can promote the bends and should not be consumed for a considerable period (months) before doing hardcore deco dives.

Is this true ? and how serious is this ? Why is this so ? Would this be an issue for and average tech diver ? etc etc.

[finbar.taylor]

it's not just diet fissy drinks.

Aspartaine is know to thicken the blood which will reduce the ability to remove disolved gas.

In the UK Aspartaine is the major sweetner in drink manafacturer which is strange as in Australia, and germany it's banned (maybe more but only been to those countries and found it out)

as a result I've decided to cut uit out of my diet (there's many reason's to avaoid it long before you get on to the deco implications)

Google it and read up on it but that's my main undersatnding of it, confirmed by several people who know about these things.

Fin

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by finbar.taylor

it's not just diet fissy drinks.

Aspartaine is know to thicken the blood which will reduce the ability to remove disolved gas.

In the UK Aspartaine is the major sweetner in drink manafacturer which is strange as in Australia, and germany it's banned (maybe more but only been to those countries and found it out)

It's not banned in Germany because that's where the Coke Light bottles that you find in some London newsagents come from. And don't Diet Coke cans in Aus say "Contains a source of phenylalanine" on them. Which is the same thing.

You could try drinks with sucralose in them if you want to avoid aspartame, though look on the internet and you'll find people convinced that that will kill them too.

Jason

[drunkdiver]

From now on im only drinking Westons Organic Cider before deco dives !

[Laurie]

Originally Posted by JasonP

though look on the internet and you'll find people convinced that that will kill them too.

Jason

That is the trouble with the internet. I just did a quick search and found several sites that state that Aspartame causes everything from joint pain to brain damage and instant death. Other websites state that non-fat milk and tomatoes are a far greater source of Phenylanine.
Don't know about Oz & Germany but in India it states on the botlle "Not suitable for children"

[finbar.taylor]

Originally Posted by Laurie

That is the trouble with the internet. I just did a quick search and found several sites that state that Aspartame causes everything from joint pain to brain damage and instant death. Other websites state that non-fat milk and tomatoes are a far greater source of Phenylanine.
Don't know about Oz & Germany but in India it states on the botlle "Not suitable for children"

I'm just going on the opionions of my sister and several of her friends from work (she's a doctor and one of these friends specialises in blood (very interesting play with a portable doppler test but that's an interesting story)) I chose to believe this and as such avaoid it.

As for the Coke Zero in AU it is not present and in all the german drinks I've seen had no aspartaine in and some one told me that was because it was banned but that might be bollocks

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by finbar.taylor

As for the Coke Zero in AU it is not present and in all the german drinks I've seen had no aspartaine in and some one told me that was because it was banned but that might be bollocks

the zero coke movement - Coke Zero Ingredients
They just list it as sweetener 951 in Aus, which is the same thing.

Jason