Why is there always an assumption that the person ordering a diet soda is a dumbass who thinks it counterbalances his/her meal.  Some of us have just grown accustomed to the taste, whether dieting or not, and prefer it to sugary sodas. 

 Becouse most of us at some time worked the drive through at a fast food restaurant or two, You get 200+ pound woman that order a salad a diet coke then a biggie frosty, And most of them say when they get to the counter I'm tyringto cut my calories. It was hard not to say lady just order the regular soda that frosty has like 3000 calories whats another 500. The biggest problem most studies have found out that human body can not tell the difference between regular sugar and artificial sweetener. In both cases the body produces  insulin to counter act the sugar, The problem is in that artificial sweetenerdoes not need the insulin to be produced, Now the body craves food to counter the insulin it just produced. The reason Artificial sweetener has no calories is because the molecule is to big to be absorbed by the body. It makes great ant poison to the ants think its sugar and starve to death

As a Type 1 diabetic and the fact that I am allergic to the chlorine used in the local tap water puts me between a rock and a hard place.I limit myself to 2 12oz.can per day on diet sodas,but have to spend a fortune on distilled water.

I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

So, cool...if you like the flavor of diet soda pop, the official line now is that it's better to go ahead and add the 100+ calories of a regular soda since you're eating bad foods anyway? That makes a whole lot of sense. Sure, a Big Mac, large fries, and diet soda seems silly, but if you're not trying to cut calories -- for whatever reason -- then it's nobody's business what you drink with your meal. For Heaven's sake, get a life and stop trying to regulate everyone else's!

A pretty inconclusive article... especially citing 1 comment as the primary source for "the reason".   It actually may be more due to the caffeine affecting insulin more than "sweet" receptors on the tongue. per a Canadian study showing it decreases insulin sensitivity therefore requiring more sugar in the bloodstream to function.  Or mentally thinking saving calories in one area makes room for that donut.  Or even that those who already drink more water are more focused and careful of their diet. 

If you reach for the diet version of you favorite soda, you may be doing more harm than good. By consuming aspartame or other unnatural sugar substitutes you're risking your long term health. Aspartame can cause up to 92 different health problems. Also, the sugary version of your favorite soda most likely contains high fructose corn syrup which is immediately turned to fat on consumption. These facts are well documented by searching the internet. The best bet is to just stop with the soda until the companies produce something worth drinking.

We went off Diet Coke cold turkey in June - My wife quit June 1 and I quit June 2. (My kids have no interest in soda at all, thank goodness.) There *is* life after Diet Soda! I was addicted to Diet Coke - I was drinking anywhere from 3-5 cans a day... and it's easily accessible all throughout my day.

We mainly ditched it because we're trying to get healthier and we just felt that it can't be good to consume all those artificial sweetners. I've heard so many studies and news reports that the artificial sweetners confuse the heck out of the body (to paraphrase everything we've read), so we're artificial-sweetner free. I now use sugar in my coffee (just less of it) and my wife's off sugar completely. The body knows how to process sugar. (I chew sugar-free gum so I'm not completely sugar-free; I just don't want my teeth to rot.)

I drink lemon-lime seltzer now, and I think I drink less of it - probably still about three cans a day, but hey, it's just carbonated water and natural flavors.

I can't say I feel "better" or have lost weight because of the soda alone (I'm also exercising a lot) but I'm sure it's helping.

Look, we all need vices, and if yours is one can of Diet Coke every now and again, so be it. But if you really want to quit, trust me Elisa: if I can do it, you can do it!

LIARS!!! THIS WOMAN IS A SPOKEPERSON FOR THE AMERICAN DIABETIC ASSOC.

The ADA liars promotes diet soda! which causes diabetes and Obesity. The Spirit Happy site spoke about the danger of diet soda 2 years ago and the ADA did not want to hear it.

Do not listen to these Billionaire LIARS! Please see this http://spirithappy.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/type-2-diabetes-diet-the-cancer-in-diet-soda/

or just google SPIRIT HAPPY DIET

This article dismisses, belittles, and ignores recent research.

A study at Perdue has shown that a mammal, rats in this case, GAIN weight on an artificial sweetener diet.  The experimental animals showed clearly a change in metabolism, a lower metabolism.  Same foods, 15 calorie sugar sweetened vs. 9 calorie artificially sweetened.  The 9 calorie rats gained weight, the 15 calorie rats did not.  The difference was metabolic response to ingestion of sugar.  Very likely the response BECAUSE of the taste, sweet.

It has become apparent that if you supply the taste, sweet, and no calories follow, the body learns to dissociate the sweet taste with the normal cascade of responses and hormones needed for digestion and use.  Consume sweet  and sugar later and the body treats it improperly.

The improper digestion and use of sugar IS diabetes.

The unexplained meteoric rise in both obesity and adult onset diabetes, exactly matches the increased manufacture and use of artificial sweeteners.   Look for yourself. Easy to do and find on the internet.

The chemicals are safe, we have tested them ad nauseum to the satisfaction of all governmental agencies and scientific norms.  What we have NOT done is long term studies of our metabolic response and training.  The human body can learn.

The  Association is doing a grave miss service by dismissing the available research, or ascribing the total problem to the no guilt approach of over eating. They SHOULD be jumping on this with both feet to research, confirm, or deny VIA SCIENTIFIC method.   The head in the sand approach is flatly wrong.

The rats that ate the most calories, weight remained normal, constant. The rats that ate the fewer calories courtesy of artificial sweeteners, GAINED weight.

AND every one of knows multiple people who drink NOTHING but diet soda, use artificial sweeteners all of the time in everything, AND are the heaviest and most diabetic.  That is anecdotal evidence, but the Perdue research has pointed out why it may be true, poor to improper metabolic response, and possibly a rupture in our own internal, innate,  calorie counting.

The results we see every day.  Obesity continues to increase, as does the here to fore unexplained rise in adult onset diabetes.

Get a new writer.

I gave up soft drinks of all kinds over 2 yrs ago and haven't missed it one bit....Feel much better without them as well......Once you drill into the ingredients (all of them) it gets a little scary.....You have to wonder how the manufacturers came up with that combination of "stuff"......

Of the few diet sodas I have tried I have never found one that tasted good. Usually diet sodas taste even sweeter to me which I don't like either. I have a couple of sodas a day and I should cut down. But I try to eat lower calorie snacks which also have less fat and salt than lots of other snacks. One thing I don't do much of anymore is eat lots of fast food. The fast food chains have made such an effort to keep the price low that the quality has gone down so much that the food tastes horrible.

Would it be possible to post links to the study abstracts that are mentioned within the article? It would be great to be able to see more information on the studies. For example, what are where the people that gained weight after drinking diet soda for seven years? Did these subjects undergo a "life transition," i.e., move from a college student to a working professional?

Just stay away from aspartame, that stuff is poison.

I prefer the taste of Diet Soda. I think those studies of Diet Soda's lack of ability to help a person who lose weight, should have been studies to keep people from putting on weight. Naturally, people who drink diet sodas are trying to control their weight. So. the control group are the ones who don't need to maintain there weight so much? That's like comparing people who eat steak with people who eat hamburger.

The chemical breakdown of Aspartame in the human body is as follows:

Methanol, from Aspartame, is released in the small intestine when it meets the enzyme chymotrypsin.

The methanol is then converted to formaldehyde. The formaldehyde is next converted to formic acid. Formic acid is toxic and is commonly used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings. Phenylalanine and aspartic acid (90% of Aspartame) are amino acids normally used in the synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods eaten. When unaccompanied by other amino acids, they become neurotoxic.

The FDA has established at least 92 medical/health problems that have symptoms associated with Aspartame. These include abdominal pain, anxiety attacks, Arthritis, Asthma and asthmatic reactions, bloating, edema , blood sugar control problems, brain cancer, breathing difficulties, burning eyes or throat, burning urination, chest pains, chronic cough, chronic fatigue, confusion, death, depression, diarrhea, dizziness, excessive thirst or hunger, flushing of face, hair loss or thinning of hair, headaches/migraines, dizziness, hearing loss, heart palpitations, hives , hypertension, impotency and sexual problems, insomnia, irritability, joint pains, laryngitis, marked personality changes, memory loss, menstrual problems or changes, migraines and severe headaches, muscle spasms, nausea or vomiting, seizures and convulsions, slurring of speech, swallowing pain, tachycardia, tremors, tinnitus, vertigo, vision loss, and weight gain.

Aspartame disease mimics the symptoms and many times worsens the following diseases:

Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Lupus, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Alzheimer's Disease, birth defects, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lymphoma, Lyme Disease, and Attention Deficit Disorder.

In September 2004, an affidavit was signed describing the third world studies and the health hazards of aspartame. These studies were conducted in 1983 and 1984 by the G.D. Searle Company and were translated to English from Spanish in 1984. The "double blind" studies showed irrefutable evidence that aspartame caused severe health problems and even death to the study group. According to the affidavit, the doctor directing the studies has not been seen since the approval of aspartame in 1984. The affidavit also describes how the affiant was directed by G.D. Searle officials to destroy all records of the studies (including filed notes and/or translations) possessed by the affiant. The affiant also described how the translations were forwarded to the G.D. Searle corporate offices in Illinois.

These studies were destroyed and kept from the public and from health investigators.

(FYI, Aspartame is being renamed as "AminoSweet" because so many people are becoming aware of its dangers)

http://www.naturalnews.com/023128_aspartame_toxic_studies.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/aspartame.html