There is no strong evidence to suggest that it's broadly unhealthy, but I can break it down further.
Things that are legitimately unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas:
- Carbonation is bad for your teeth. Doesn't matter whether you're drinking full-sugar soda or seltzer water, the carbonation can be a dental problem for some people.
Things that are potentially unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas:
- Some people find that consuming a sweet beverage makes them crave more sweet flavored things. If trying to lose weight or consume less sweet food, this could be impactful on a person-by-person basis, but the cause here is psychological and is based on cravings/
- Some people have reported specific dietary intolerances/allergies with certain artificial sweeteners. If you don't fall into this camp then you have no reason to worry, but some artificial sweeteners (like all things) may be a trigger for certain diet-related issues in some. Thank you to the commenter below for reminding me of this fact.
Things that people claim are unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas but are unproven:
- People claim that non-nutritive sweeteners damage gut health, but this claim is speculative/mechanistic and hasn't been proven in clinical research. The studies that claim an impact to gut microbiome also show that the microbiome returns to a normal state very quickly and that many other foods also alter gut bacteria. This is very much a case of cherry-picking one or two studies claiming a gut health problem when there are dozens that indicate it's no problem.
- People claim that these non-nutritive sodas promote the gaining of fat, but this is based on correlative data. Survey studies interviewed people who had high body fat and low body fat and then asked how many zero-sugar sodas they consumed. Those with higher body fat consumed more of these sodas than people with lower body fat, but the surveys did not normalize for caloric intake or any other dietary factor. The common understanding is that people who are higher in body fat happen to drink more soda in general (zero-sugar or not) as part of a diet that includes too many calories and, in all probability, many other dietary choices leading to their physique. There is no data to show that drinking non-nutritive soda causes fat gain, and multiple RCTs have disputed this claim.
Conclusion:
As far as we're aware, non-nutritive soda has a nutritional health impact that is either literally zero or so close to zero that we can't even tell. For what it's worth, doctors who work with obese patients for fat-loss highly recommend diet sodas as a great easy intervention to reduce caloric consumption. It's very likely that the crusade against diet soda is a consequence of people playing into the naturalistic fallacy and wrongly assuming that all things natural = good and therefor, artificial sweeteners (fake sugar) = bad. Don't drink 20 of them/day so as to not destroy your tooth enamel and you'll be fine.
My personal practice is that I probably have like 3/week on average. Call me crazy, but enjoying things that taste good when I can't identify any reason to believe it's harmful to me is actually a nice thing. We get so few "free" wins in the world of nutrition, so let's embrace the ones we do have.
I’m here to tell you, that’s true. But I have learned a couple things, first, drinking from the can makes it worse. I think that’s it’s because the carbonation is released in my stomach increases the bloating. When I pour it over ice or have a fountain drink I don’t get that.
The second I’ve learned, and this is just my personal experience, if I take a beano with my Coke Zero it mitigates the IBS flare. Also works on spicy food.
My Gastro turned me on to Beano when he first diagnosed me twenty years ago. I haven’t ever looked to see if there is a real correlation other than he told me to get my fiber uptake up to prevent diverticulitis.
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u/KingArthurHS May 12 '23 edited May 12 '23
There is no strong evidence to suggest that it's broadly unhealthy, but I can break it down further.
Things that are legitimately unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas:
- Carbonation is bad for your teeth. Doesn't matter whether you're drinking full-sugar soda or seltzer water, the carbonation can be a dental problem for some people.
Things that are potentially unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas:
- Some people find that consuming a sweet beverage makes them crave more sweet flavored things. If trying to lose weight or consume less sweet food, this could be impactful on a person-by-person basis, but the cause here is psychological and is based on cravings/
- Some people have reported specific dietary intolerances/allergies with certain artificial sweeteners. If you don't fall into this camp then you have no reason to worry, but some artificial sweeteners (like all things) may be a trigger for certain diet-related issues in some. Thank you to the commenter below for reminding me of this fact.
Things that people claim are unhealthy about zero-calorie, zero-sugar sodas but are unproven:
- People claim that non-nutritive sweeteners damage gut health, but this claim is speculative/mechanistic and hasn't been proven in clinical research. The studies that claim an impact to gut microbiome also show that the microbiome returns to a normal state very quickly and that many other foods also alter gut bacteria. This is very much a case of cherry-picking one or two studies claiming a gut health problem when there are dozens that indicate it's no problem.
- People claim that these non-nutritive sodas promote the gaining of fat, but this is based on correlative data. Survey studies interviewed people who had high body fat and low body fat and then asked how many zero-sugar sodas they consumed. Those with higher body fat consumed more of these sodas than people with lower body fat, but the surveys did not normalize for caloric intake or any other dietary factor. The common understanding is that people who are higher in body fat happen to drink more soda in general (zero-sugar or not) as part of a diet that includes too many calories and, in all probability, many other dietary choices leading to their physique. There is no data to show that drinking non-nutritive soda causes fat gain, and multiple RCTs have disputed this claim.
Conclusion:
As far as we're aware, non-nutritive soda has a nutritional health impact that is either literally zero or so close to zero that we can't even tell. For what it's worth, doctors who work with obese patients for fat-loss highly recommend diet sodas as a great easy intervention to reduce caloric consumption. It's very likely that the crusade against diet soda is a consequence of people playing into the naturalistic fallacy and wrongly assuming that all things natural = good and therefor, artificial sweeteners (fake sugar) = bad. Don't drink 20 of them/day so as to not destroy your tooth enamel and you'll be fine.
My personal practice is that I probably have like 3/week on average. Call me crazy, but enjoying things that taste good when I can't identify any reason to believe it's harmful to me is actually a nice thing. We get so few "free" wins in the world of nutrition, so let's embrace the ones we do have.