Nobody Needs This

Diet Coke Plus is the newest formulation of Diet Coke. Diet Coke Plus was introduced in April 2007 in select areas for test marketing.
Each 8-ounce serving of Diet Coke Plus provides 15% of the daily value for niacin and vitamins B6 and B12, and 10% for zinc and magnesium. ^[1]


Seriously? Did you people learn nothing from New Coke?


My initial thought upon seeing a coworker chug this stuff like Keystone at a High School tire fire was, "way to go Coke!" Finding new ways to scam people this late in the game really has to be admired. Of course I thought the coworker was a bit of sucker. If your health situation is so starved for nutrients that you need to sneak them into your body via soda might I suggest that rather than drinking some Diet Coke you consider seeing a doctor (And eating some damn vegetables!). After doing a little research I found that the scam goes much deeper that previous thought. The people at Coke didn't even make an effort to include nutrients that their target customers (seems safe to assume that this is adult females in western countries) are typically lacking.

According to the World Health Organization:

The most common and important deficiencies for the health of populations are:

• iodine deficiency disorders
• iron deficiency anaemia
• vitamin A deficiency.

so... no niacin, no vitamin B6 or B12 no zinc and no magnesium. Awesome. Just how do the Coke vitamins of choice fair? I've looked that up for you on ye olde internet! god bless the kingdom of tubes!

Niacin
(via Merek)

• Dietary niacin deficiency (causing pellagra) is uncommon in developed countries.

B6
(via NIH)

• Clinical signs of vitamin B₆ deficiency are rarely seen in the United States.
• Individuals with chronic alcohol abuse frequently exhibit lowered plasma levels of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, the coenzyme form of vitamin B6.

B12

B12 deficiency seems to be a bit more common and it can cause anemia (which is very common in women) so this supplement initially seems like an ok idea. However, upon further research I found that there are many different variants of anemia and Coke picked the wrong one to focus on (In the United States, 20% of all women of childbearing age have iron deficiency anemia). Next!

Zinc
(via NIH)

• Low zinc status has been observed in 30% to 50% of alcoholics. Alcohol decreases the absorption of zinc and increases loss of zinc in urine.

Magnesium
(via NIH)

• Magnesium deficiency is rare.
• Deficiency of magnesium can occur in alcoholics

So the question of the month: Is Coke just choosing vitamins at random in an effort to scam those among us who want very badly to believe that diet soda is healthy or are the trying to target the burgeoning alcoholic community?