We've all heard the controversy about diet soft drinks and how they might be unhealthy: can regularly consuming these drinks lead to serious health risks such as obesity or even heart problems?
The common concerns that make diet soft drinks questionable to some people have to do with a key ingredient: artificial sweeteners.
People who typically drink diet soft drinks are those who are looking to lose weight or consume less sugar. These low-calorie beverages are offered as an alternative and contain 99 percent of water andartificial sweeteners.
Some believe that because diet soda contains artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and saccharin, they feel like they are allowed to consume more calories in their diet.
Auburn University Nutrition Professor, Dr. Kevin Huggins, said that recent research has suggested that artificial sweeteners are also thought to cause a certain signaling to the brain that ultimately will cause an increase in caloric intake.
"From what I understand that's very preliminary research, and so we really don't have a good handle on that." Huggins said.
"Shape" magazine infers that diet soft drinks alone won't necessarily cause weight gain or weight loss.
Allegedly, weight gain will most likely depend on the individual's overall health.
Laurel Lee, a junior in elementary education, enjoys having a diet soft drink every now and then.
"I like the taste of Diet Dr. Pepper better than regular," Lee said. "And the idea of zero calories is more appealing than consuming a ton of sugar in one drink."
The supposed health risks of diet soft drinks make them not even worth drinking to some people.
Savannah Weber, a sophomore studying building science, believes that diet soft drinks are counterproductive and would recommend drinking water instead.
"[Diet soft drinks] may not have any calories, but the things that they put in them are so bad for you that you might as well just drink a regular one," Weber said. "If you're really trying to diet and get healthy, then you wouldn't want to be putting that crap in your body anyway."
Although there are many speculations floating around about diet sodas, no major health risks have been proven.
Ultimately, as long as consumers are moderately drinking a can of diet soda, serious health concerns shouldn't be an issue.
"Of course, you know, if you do a Google search on these things you can find all sorts of people linking [diet soft drinks] to bad health issues, and that's probably anecdotal, and you can't really rely on that," Huggins said.
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