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Donald Trump drinks 12 cokes a day. Here's what that does to your body

Picture: Donald Trump
Picture: Donald Trump
Getty

The New York Times wrote a lengthy profile on Donald Trump, giving insight into his day-to-day including his tweeting habits, watching 8 hours of TV and his alleged propensity to swear at his staff.

And his drinking habits.

Apparently, the US president drinks 12 diet Coca Colas every day.

Drinking diet soft drinks - especially 12 of them a day - comes with a host of potential health issues.

Risk of weight gain

Firstly, diet coke contains artificial sweeteners, one of which is called aspartame.

In theory, this is supposed to make the drink better for you because it replaces sugar.

Not really.

Researchers wrote in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine that this is not actually the case:

Intuitively, people choose non-caloric artificial sweeteners over sugar to lose or maintain weight …

Whether due to a successful marketing effort on the part of the diet beverage industry or not, the weight conscious public often consider artificial sweeteners "health food." But do artificial sweeteners actually help reduce weight?

Surprisingly, epidemiologic data suggest the contrary. Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain.

That’s right: though it contains zero calories, the beverage could encourage weight gain.

A different study, done by the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Centre in San Francisco (in 2011 and 2015) found that two servings of diet Coca Cola a day increased the waistline by over three inches.

Another study said this was especially the case with older people.

In 2012, Donald Trump took to Twitter to share his thoughts on Diet Coke:

Diet drinks are bad for your teeth

According to Colgate:

Although they often contain no sugar, diet sodas usually cause about the same amount of dental erosion as regular sodas.

Researchers at the University of Michigan, compared the eroding effects of regular sodas and diet sodas on teeth and found very little difference. For example, after 14 days of exposure to regular Coca Cola, 2.8 mg/cm² of tooth enamel had dissolved, and diet Coca Cola dissolved a little over 3 mg/cm² of tooth enamel in the same amount of time.

Regular consumption of diet drinks could increase risk of strokes and dementia

According to a study of 4,372 adults at Boston University, diet fizzy drinks were more likely to cause strokes and dementia than their sugary counterparts.

The study found that adults who consumed one or more diet drink a day were three times more at risk of strokes and almost three times more likely to develop dementia than those who didn’t.

Excessive caffeine intake is not good for your health

According to the Coca Cola website, a regular can of Diet Coke contains 42mg of caffeine. If you multiply that by twelve, it comes to 504mg of caffeine a day.

The recommended daily amount for a healthy adult is 400mg.

There are a whole host of health issues related to consuming too much caffeine, including high blood pressure, insomnia and addiction.

More: Donald Trump admits to 'psychological problems' in newly released tapes

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