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 Diet mixers can make you more drunk than higher-calorie options. 
 
 A new study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, found that using diet soda as a mixer can dramatically increase breath-alcohol content (BAC) without increasing your awareness of being impaired. 
 
 The study, which compared Smirnoff Red Label plus Squirt (a lemon-lime soda with no caffeine) with the vodka with Diet Squirt, found that the diet cocktail increased BAC by 18%. That’s almost as much as having an additional standard drink and was enough to tip people from being under the legal limit for driving to being unsafe to drive. 
 
 “One of the key things we found was that even though BAC peaked 18% 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,” says the study’s lead author Cecile Marczinski, who is an assistant professor of psychology at Northern Kentucky University. 
 
 (MORE: Why Women Drink and Drive) 
 
 The study involved 16 young men and women who consider themselves to be social drinkers. Over the course of three different drinking sessions, they were given either a placebo drink, a diet Squirt with vodka, or a full-sugar Squirt with vodka. Researchers decided to test a noncaffeinated diet drink because although caffeine doesn’t affect breath-detectable levels of alcohol, it does affect whether people think they are intoxicated so would have made the results more difficult to interpret. The dose of vodka was calibrated to each participant’s weight and gender to put them close to the .08 legal limit for drinking, which is the equivalent of drinking four beers in an hour. 
 
 After drinking the cocktail they were assigned, participants were tested for their reaction time and the number of errors they made in a computer task in which they learned a response and then had to inhibit that reaction on cue. They were also asked about their perceptions of how drunk and tired they were and whether they felt they could safely drive. At all times, the amount of alcohol measured in the volunteers’ breath was higher among those whose cocktails included diet drinks. And while the participants never reached the legal limit when they drank sugared soda with alcohol, they exceeded the safe limit for driving within 40 minutes if they had the diet cocktail. 
 
 (MORE: Study: Men and Women Benefit in Different Ways from AA) 
 
 “They are more impaired on the computer task, measured both by reaction time and errors,” Marczinski says of those in the diet-drink group. “You shouldn’t trust your own judgment of impairment. In one case, the subjects were safe to drive and legal, and in the other case, they were not, but they had no idea.” 
 
 So why would diet drinks increase intoxication? Previous work found that the stomach reacts to sugary drinks as though they are food, working to digest the calories. Eating solid food while drinking significantly reduces BAC, by 20% to 57%, and sugary drinks seem to act similarly, keeping alcohol in the stomach longer, slowing down its release into the bloodstream. 
 
 With diet soda, by contrast, Marczinski says, “The stomach doesn’t recognize that it needs to do anything with that drink, because it has no sugar. It goes right to small intestine where the most alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream.” 
 
 Marczinski recognizes that the results may prompt some to turn to diet drinks for a quicker and cheaper buzz, but, she says, the connection is important to recognize so bartenders and party hosts can look out for those who keep ordering diet-mixed drinks. “I think people need to be aware of this.” ||||| People who drank vodka with a diet mixer had breath alcohol levels 18 percent higher than when they drank alcohol with full-calorie soda. Sophie Bushwick reports 
 
 Diet soda may help or hinder attempts to lose weight. But it definitely can get you drunker. Because a drink made from alcohol and a diet mixer boosts breathalyzer readings higher than the same drink with a sugary mixer. The finding is in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. [Cecile A. Marczinski and Amy L. Stamates, Artificial sweeteners versus regular mixers increase breath alcohol concentrations in male and female social drinkers] 
 
 For the study, 16 casual drinkers knocked back one of three drinks: vodka mixed with sugary soda, vodka mixed with sugar-free soda, or a placebo. Over three different sessions, each participant got each drink. After the drink, the subjects were given breathalyzer tests and reaction time measurements. Participants also did a self-assessment where they estimated their own drunkenness, tiredness and willingness to drive. 
 
 When both men and women drank vodka with the diet mixer, their breath alcohol levels were on average 18 percent higher than when they consumed the alcohol with full-calorie soda. And their reaction times were slower. 
 
 Although a diet mixer impaired the subjects more, they rated themselves as not being any drunker. So if you're watching your weight, watch out for what you drink. 
 
 —Sophie Bushwick 
 
 [The above text is a transcript of this podcast.] ||||| Diet & fitness Drinking diet soda just makes you eat more Jan. 16, 2014 at 5:02 PM ET 
 
 msnbc.com 
 
 Don't depend on diet soda to help you lose weight. A new study shows that overweight and obese people who drink diet beverages consume more calories from food than heavy people who consume sugary drinks, according to a new Johns Hopkins study. 
 
 “When you make that switch from a sugary beverage for a diet beverage, you’re often not changing other things in your diet,” says lead researcher Sara Bleich, associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Bleich and other Johns Hopkins researchers used data from the 1999-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. For this study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, they analyzed participants’ recollection of what they’d had to eat and drink over the past 24 hours. 
 
 They found that about one in five overweight or obese American adults regularly drinks diet beverages -- that includes soda and low-calorie juices, teas and the like -- which is about twice the amount that healthy-weight adults are drinking. “On the one hand, that’s encouraging. People are being told if you need to cut calories from your diet, discretionary beverages are a great place to start,” Bleich says. 
 
 
 
 More From Today: How to Lose 10 Pounds in a Month 
 
 Diet soda consumption has increased steadily since 1965, when just 3 percent of Americans were regularly drinking the stuff, the study authors write. Sales of diet soda actually declined 7 percent last year, but Bleich thinks that just means habitual diet soda drinkers are switching to the many flavored teas, juices and vitamin-enhanced waters currently on store shelves. 
 
 
 
 Our bodies fight to try to keep our weight stable, which is one of the reasons weight loss is so hard —and it could help explain why overweight diet soda drinkers may be consuming more calories from solid food. 
 
 For slimmer people, the study suggests that diet drinks can contribute to weight maintenance, explains NBC News diet and health editor Madelyn Fernstrom.
– It's not that researchers think switching from sugary sodas to diet versions is a bad thing, it's just that those who do make the switch should bear in mind a few things: They may eat more: A Johns Hopkins study finds that heavy people who drink diet soda tend to eat more than heavy people who drink regular soda, reports Today.com. “When you make that switch from a sugary beverage for a diet beverage, you’re often not changing other things in your diet,” says the lead researcher. The advice isn't to give up the diet soda, it's to cut down on the food that goes with it, especially sweet snacks, reports the Los Angeles Times. They'll get drunker: People who favor their booze mixed with diet soda will blow higher breathalyzer readings—an average of 18% higher—than those who mix with regular soda, according to a study picked up by Scientific American. It seems the sugar in regular soda helps slow alcohol consumption. "If you're watching your weight, watch out for what you drink," says the post.