Sugar has gotten such a bad rep that people are all over themselves to grab coke zero “to save calories” and stick to a “low-carb diet”. Frankly, I’d never touch a diet drink with e ten-foot pole - if I want a coke, I’ll drink a real ice-cold coke and then move on with my life. While too much sugar is never a good thing, a single can of coke now and then is not a big deal - it’s sugar your body burns for energy, and it is the dosage which makes the poison. But chemicals in light products is a different story. Frankly, I’ve never been a fan of light products - they just don’t satisfy me.
It’s just counterintuitive to common sense: the body counts calories partly based on taste in combo with calorie density, and if we mess with food, that will very likely have an impact on our appetite-satiety switch, which is the worst thing ever to mess with, if we wish to have a healthy relationship with food, body and weight.
It is, however, true: we don’t have science to support that drinking artificial sweetened products can be tied to serious diseases. However, I think that is pretty much besides the point.
Just because you don’t get cancer from one single life-style factor, it doesn’t make it harmless.
And chemically altering food is rarely a good idea. I don’t believe in waiting around for science to catch up with common sense - and i believe in the precautionary principle: waiting til something is proven 100% safe, not the other way around. Currently we have a tendency to wait and see if something is harmful, and everyone is ridiculed in the meantime, if we express concern, and would like to wait and see more evidence before we jump in.
Changing health for the better or worse takes time.
What we eat can take years to manifest itself as symptoms of imbalance in the body
In human studies, people who normally did not use artificial sweeteners were given the maximum amount recommended by the FDA. In four of the seven volunteers, blood sugar levels were disrupted in the same way as in the mice. In another study of 381 non-diabetic participants, researchers found a correlation between use of artificial sweeteners and glucose intolerance. The gut bacteria of those who used artificial sweeteners were different from those who did not. (1)
The researchers tested sweeteners including Splenda, acesulfame potassium, aspartame and saccharin (2,3,4,5)
In one study, scientists found that when mice ate the sweetener saccharin, the numbers and types of bacteria in their guts changed, including a reduction in some beneficial bacteria. (5)
Case in point: if it seems too good to be true i.e. “there are no calories in this - I can drink all I want”, it often is. Eat real food, eat varied and keep it simple wins every time over new-found diet trends and chemically-altered foods.
References: 1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4615743/2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18800291/3) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28594855/4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25313461/5) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25231862/