--- title: Is Diet Soda Bad for You? description: Is it time to kick artificial sugars out of the can? canonical: https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-19T11:02:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:16:55.217Z article:section: Health og:title: Is Diet Soda Bad for You? og:description: Is it time to kick artificial sugars out of the can? og:url: https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is Diet Soda Bad for You? twitter:description: Is it time to kick artificial sugars out of the can? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Skinny on Diet Soda > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 19, 2015 11:02 AM UTC  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 19, 2015 11:02 AM UTC Diet soda gives you a sugar rush far stronger than the granulated stuff in a sugar bowl ever could–and for no calories. But research is mounting that low- and no-calorie sweeteners may not be great choices for dieters. A recent study found that over nine years, diet-soda drinkers gained nearly triple the abdominal fat–3 in. (8 cm)–as those who didn’t drink diet soda. Though scientists are still puzzling over how this may happen, here’s what they think is going on. 1\. Not all sweetness satisfies. When you consume enough real sugar, your brain gets the message, and a sense of satiety–or fullness–takes over. “Regular sugar has caloric consequences,” says Dr. Helen Hazuda, professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and senior author of the new study. “Your body is used to knowing that a sweet taste means you are ingesting energy”–that means calories–“and that if you don’t burn them off, it’s going to convert to fat,” she says. But the most popular artificial sweetener in diet drinks, for instance, is about 200 times sweeter than sugar without triggering a feeling of satiety. 2\. That can lead to overeating. Bad things can happen when you strip sweetness of its power to satisfy: the link between eating and the role of calories in your body starts to crumble. According to a recent study, when rats ate yogurt mixed with an artificial sweetener, they consumed fewer calories and gained more weight than rats that ate sugar-sweetened yogurt, suggesting that the no-calorie sweeteners interfere with a natural ability to regulate incoming calories. This–no surprise–can lead to sugar cravings and weight gain. 3\. It may also mess with your microbes. A recent study in Nature found that artificial sweeteners changed the colonies of gut bacteria in mice in ways that made the animals vulnerable to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance, which are metabolic disorders that can lead to weight gain and increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes. 4\. It might be bad for your heart. In a study based on dietary questionnaires of 9,500 people, those who said they drank one can of diet soda a day had a 34% higher risk of metabolic syndrome–a cluster of risk factors that can lead to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes–than those who didn’t drink diet soda. The study stopped short of drawing a cause-and-effect link, but the association surprised the authors, who called for more research. Sources: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; Behavioral Neuroscience; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; Nature; Circulation ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/"},"headline":"The Skinny on Diet Soda","datePublished":"2015-03-19T11:02:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:16:55.217Z","description":"Is it time to kick artificial sugars out of the can?","url":"https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3750550/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/","name":"The Skinny on Diet Soda"}}]}] ```