--- title: Artificial Sweeteners: Is Diet Soda Bad For You? description: Civil rights and soda might not seem like a classic combination. But yesterday, as major soda brands announced their goal to reduce beverage calories in... canonical: https://time.com/3426253/cutting-calories-soda/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-24T19:37:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:23:30.770Z article:section: Health og:title: Why Cutting Soda Calories Isn’t Such A Sweet Idea og:description: Civil rights and soda might not seem like a classic combination. But yesterday, as major soda brands announced their goal to reduce beverage calories in... og:url: https://time.com/3426253/cutting-calories-soda/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt93244da353491e8e/6986a53ad0b6f2b71c306494/soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5412 og:image:height: 3044 og:image:alt: soda og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Cutting Soda Calories Isn’t Such A Sweet Idea twitter:description: Civil rights and soda might not seem like a classic combination. But yesterday, as major soda brands announced their goal to reduce beverage calories in... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt93244da353491e8e/6986a53ad0b6f2b71c306494/soda.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Cutting Soda Calories Isn’t Such a Sweet Idea > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 24, 2014 7:37 PM UTC  carbonated liquid carbonated liquid Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 24, 2014 7:37 PM UTC Civil rights and soda might not seem like a classic combination. But yesterday, as major soda brands announced their goal to reduce beverage calories in the American diet, it seemed to make sense to Wendy Clark, president of sparkling brands and strategic marketing for Coca-Cola North America. “‘The time is always right to do the right thing’ – MLK” she [tweeted](https://twitter.com/wnd). “So proud of our industry.” That time will come in 2025, the year by which every American will drink 20% fewer soda calories than they do today. In the [press release](http://www.ameribev.org/news-media/news-releases-statements/more/334/) about the announcement, which was made at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple vowed to make these reductions in part by making containers smaller, as well as focusing marketing efforts and innovation into lower-calorie drinks, no-calorie drinks and water. In the release, President Bill Clinton called the pledge a “critical step in our ongoing fight against obesity.” But are such premature congratulations merited? Is developing more low- and no-calorie bottled beverages really the way to fight obesity? Soda consumption has dropped, with [sales lower than they have been since 1995](http://time.com/44282/soda-sales-drop/). And while we might like to think sippers are swapping soda for water or unsweetened herbal tisane, research shows they’re not. A _Pediatrics_ study published earlier this year that showed while kids aren’t drinking as much soda as they once were, they’re [guzzling more energy drinks and coffee beverages](http://time.com/6496/kids-are-drinking-more-energy-drinks/)—both caffeinated sweetened products with a nutritional profile similar to most sodas. Sales for ready-to-drink tea—most of which is sweetened—are also up by double digits in the Coca-Cola portfolio, [reports](http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/02/21/coca-cola-draws-growth-from-still-beverages-while-currency-translations-play-spoilsport) _Forbes_. That’s concerning if we want to seriously address obesity. The jury is out on no-calorie and low-calorie sweeteners, but mounting recent evidence showings sugar substitutes may contribute the very obesity they’re meant to combat. That’s because they appear to [fuel sugar cravings](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/24/why-your-brain-isnt-fooled-by-sugar-stand-ins/) and [alter the composition of gut microbes](http://time.com/3380013/artificial-sweeteners-obesity), leading to a rise in blood glucose levels. Several [studies](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765) have found a link between sugar alternatives and weight gain, and research just published in the journal [_Appetite_](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666314004000) found that drinking artificially sweetened beverages make you think about food more, choose high-calorie foods more often, and feel less satisfied after eating things sweetened with actual sugar. “On face value you’re getting a nice sweet taste without calories, but my research shows it might lead to cognitive shifts that might promote overconsumption later,” Sarah Hill, the study author and a psychologist at Texas Christian University, tells TIME. This all suggests that even if soda slashes calories by 2025 as promised, the replacement ingredients could come with unforeseen consequences. The idea of tasting something sweet without getting any energy from it is an evolutionarily very novel thing for our bodies to handle, Hill says. “When you have that unnatural pairing of sweetness and no energy increase, it leads the body to perceive an energy crisis,” Hill says. “It triggers thoughts and behaviors consistent with a scarcity mode.” “I think that the real way to get change is drinking water,” Hill says. 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