This question has been on my mind for awhile now. Searching the web for an answer, I easily found this typical response of the "experts", this one written by Mayo Clinic nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D., that says 1 to 2 cans of diet drink a day shouldn't harm most people. Immediately after, though, she further qualifies her position, relating that some studies are suggesting that diet drinks increase your risk of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. Huh? She then say it is preferable to go with healthier alternatives. Why?...If the diet drinks aren't that harmful?
Searching a myriad of other websites, skeptics counter with possible problems with diet drinks: the possible effect of sweeteners on our metabolism, bringing us to eat more sweets and food in general; studies that have linked aspartame to cancer in lab rats; the acid in diet drinks harms are teeth; and drinking too much diet drink crowds out water intake.
My own position on the issue is expressed best by Wes Jackson's idea that we adopt "an ignorance-based worldview." Jackson argues that we should always assume that we are more ignorant than knowledgeable on an issue, which would lead me to suppose that we might not know the negative effects of aspartame and other sweeteners because they haven't yet been discovered by scientists. Mainstream doctors and nutritionists always declare the safety of engineered chemicals because studies haven't found problems with them. But I think we should assume these chemicals are problematic, especially if they are ultimately unnecessary and don't have any positive health benefits.
I admit that have consumed diet drinks, recently drinking 1 per day or two. For the reasons enumerated above, it is definitely time that I quit. Above all, companies such as Coke and Pepsi contribute to environmental unsustainability and have a long history of oppressing workers. In Colombia, Coke has been in league with death squads. If not for my own health, I should quit drinking diet drinks for the health of others.
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