Do artificial sweeteners in diet sodas affect long-term metabolic health differently than water?

Lens adapted to this topic: Potential-risk interpretation

A dissenting interpretation gives greater weight to observational associations and plausible biological mechanisms. It argues that habitual diet-soda consumption may correlate with adiposity or alter appetite and hormonal responses, even if short-term randomized outcomes are neutral or favorable. These findings support caution, but they do not by themselves prove that diet soda causes poorer long-term health than water.

• In the CARDIA cohort, total artificial-sweetener, aspartame, saccharin, and diet-beverage intakes were positively associated with adipose-tissue measures after reported adjustments.
• A review reports that recent studies suggest artificial sweeteners may stimulate appetite and increase caloric intake, while characterizing the health-risk evidence as debated.
• A review of the controversy notes the World Health Organization’s conditional recommendation not to use low- or no-calorie sweeteners for weight control or disease-risk reduction.
• An acute crossover study found some diet sodas augmented active GLP-1 compared with seltzer water, illustrating a possible physiological difference even though this does not establish long-term harm.

Featured sourcePotential Health Risks of Artificial Sweeteners | Annual Reviewsannualreviews.org4 sourcesView sources