Opting for diet soda has long been a popular practice among those concerned with the ill effects of sugar. But a landmark study published last November challenges the perception that artificial sweeteners are the healthier choice.
“The study found that people who regularly consumed artificially sweetened drinks had a significantly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes — even more so than those who drank sugar-sweetened beverages,” says coauthor and epidemiologist Barbora de Courten, MD, PhD, a professor at Australia’s Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Monash University. “Importantly, this increased risk was independent of weight gain, which means it’s not just about calories.”
In the first longitudinal study of its kind, researchers tracked 36,608 older adult participants over an average of 13.9 years. Results were adjusted for lifestyle, weight, and socioeconomic factors.
“Don’t assume that ‘sugar-free’ means ‘safe’ or ‘healthy.’ Just because it doesn’t contain calories or sugar doesn’t mean it has no impact on your metabolism.”
Researchers found that drinking just one can of artificially sweetened soda daily increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 38 percent compared with those who avoided diet drinks. And that was even higher than the risk for the participants consuming the same number of sugary drinks; their increased risk was 23 percent.
The results, de Courten says, indicate that artificially sweetened diet drinks come with their own health risk.
“As a physician and diabetes researcher, I’ve often seen artificial sweeteners recommended as a ‘healthier’ alternative to sugar,” she says. “So to see that sugar-free drinks could carry equal or even greater risk than sugary ones challenges a lot of our current thinking and clinical practice.
“The message is: Don’t assume that ‘sugar-free’ means ‘safe’ or ‘healthy.’ Just because it doesn’t contain calories or sugar doesn’t mean it has no impact on your metabolism.”
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