Why the pinnacle of modern technology has failed me.

I've long been a fan of diet soda. "Diet soda is the pinnacle of modern technology," I sometimes say. Well, recently my mother-in-law informed me that diet soda is bad for you. I've heard people ranting about problems with diet soda for a long time - a lot of nonsense about a lot of different problems that it might cause. I think a lot of that has come from the history of artificial sweeteners, which isn't so spotless.

Well, I've heard it before, so I wasn't surprised to hear her say that diet soda was bad for you. However, I don't tend to think of her as being a "bandwagon" sort of person, so I decided to see where science currently is on the subject of diet sodas.

Apparently, she wins.

Research suggests that people gain a couple pounds when they use diet sodas over not using sodas, and only extremely obese individuals lose weight by changing from regular to diet sodas in their diet. One article suggests that the reasons for diet soda being unhealthy are overcompensation for expected caloric restriction, as well as alteration of food preferences due to the extreme sweetness of the sweeteners. Another demonstrated that aspartame's inhibition of intestinal alkaline phosphatase enhances glucose intolerance (a chief factor of diabetese) - basically, diet sodas might be contributing to diabetes in a very different way than regular sodas.

Now, aspartame is falling out of favor due to reports of it causing cancer in rats (it hasn't been shown to cause cancer in humans), so sucralose is the up-and-coming sweetener for diet sodas. While experts seem to feel that sucralose is healthier than aspartame, research suggests that sucralose is "not biologically inert" with effects like alterations in blood levels of glucose, insulin, and other molecules important to glucose intolerance.

What I think this all means: I'm no longer able to call diet soda the pinnacle of modern technology, for which I am deeply saddened. I'll have to drink it in moderation, instead of guzzling it like I just don't care.

Some of the sources I reviewed:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856475/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4661066/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5686455/
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-diet-pepsi-with-sucralose-healthier-than-aspartame-2015-04-24