[billmalarky]

Diet soda causes insulin resistance, dental erosion, and I believe acid reflux. Just something to consider when weighing the pros/cons.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/4/688.full

http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/oral-health/basics/nutrition...

A better alternative, though still exacerbates acid reflux I believe, is flavored club soda like la croix. After about a week of drinking it, lime la croix tastes like sprite. Then if you have a real sprite you'll gag. Plus it gives you an excuse to act all fancy.

I should probably add that the difference between diet soda and flavored club soda are the flavoring agents.

With la croix, "The flavors are derived from the natural essence oils extracted from the named fruit used in each of our LaCroix flavors. There are no sugars or artificial ingredients contained in, nor added to, these extracted flavors."

http://www.lacroixwater.com/nutritional-faqs/

However I suspect drinking carbonated beverages in general is worse for you than straight water, of course.

[parenthephobia]

The conclusion of the diabetes-related study you linked to is not that diet soda causes insulin resistance, but that diet soda consumption is positively associated with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

The nature of the link is not established, but the authors speculate that diet soda consumption may lead to increased consumption of high-sugar beverages or food either directly by causing sugar cravings or indirectly by impairing the ability to gauge whether one has eaten enough.

[tzs]

> The nature of the link is not established, but the authors speculate that diet soda consumption may lead to increased consumption of high-sugar beverages or food either directly by causing sugar cravings or indirectly by impairing the ability to gauge whether one has eaten enough.

Or it could be the other way around. Suppose you are consuming a high sugar diet, both from consuming high sugar soda and eating high sugar foods. You are fat, and you know you are heading toward diabetes. You want to start taking steps to avert that.

The easiest step to take is to replace regular soda with diet soda some or all of the time. For many people that is as simple as inserting the single word "diet" into their order at the fast food place.

Thus, I think that you are going to see correlations between diet soda and various bad things because people who have these bad things or are worried about developing these bad things switch to diet soda.

[matheweis]

>> ...for me, the coke zero is well worth the mood improvement, and I've observed no negative effects.

> Diet soda causes insulin resistance, dental erosion, and I believe acid reflux

Artificial sweeteners have also been implicated in fundamental changes in gut bacteria that can lead to obesity...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeten...