Artificially sweetened beverages like Coke Zero have been linked to other health issues, including: Increased risk of heart disease. An observational study found a link between artificially sweetened beverages and an increased risk of heart disease among women with no prior history of heart disease ( 20 ).

Once you stop drinking diet soda, you may find that your food has more flavor. Artificial sweeteners in diet soda overwhelm your taste buds with sweetness—aspartame is 200 times sweeter than table sugar. Splenda is a whopping 600 times sweeter.

Diet Soda Could Actually Be Worse For You Than The Regular Stuff. Flickr / niallkennedy Diet sodas may be calorie-free, but they could be worse for your health and your waistline than ones with sugar, a new report suggests.

Abstaining from soda will also improve your bone health and decrease your risk of osteoporosis. In addition, the less soda you drink, the more you may turn to milk or other calcium-fortified drinks. These will benefit your bones way more than soda ever would.

Drinking high amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages — such as soda — can have various adverse impacts on your health. These range from increased chances of tooth decay to a higher risk of heart disease and metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes.

Diet soda may change your brain’s reaction to sweetness Some research suggests that those who drink diet soda have higher activity in the area of the brain associated with the desire to consume foods high in fat and sugar. So those who drink diet soda seem to alter the brain’s sweet-sensing reward center.

Although diet soda has no calories, sugar, or fat, it has been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes and heart disease in several studies. Research has found that just one serving of an artificially sweetened drink per day is associated with an 8–13% higher risk of type 2 diabetes ( 22 , 23 ).

The consumption of aspartame, unlike dietary protein, can elevate the levels of phenylalanine and aspartic acid in the brain. These compounds can inhibit the synthesis and release of neurotransmitters, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which are known regulators of neurophysiological activity.

But, like many foods containing artificial additives, there is a safe daily limit. An average adult should consume no more than 40 milligrams of aspartame per kilogram of body weight per day. To exceed the limit, most people would need to drink at least 14 cans of diet drinks a day.