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Diet drinks beat sugary ones
Network meta-analysis
Water as the replacement also improved things, though less for adiposity. Health markers came out about even between water and non-nutritive sweetener beverages, and both beat sugar-sweetened ones. A network meta-analysis compares treatments never tested head to head by linking them through a common comparator: if A is compared to B and B to C, A and C can be compared through B. By that route, non-nutritive sweeteners came out slightly better than water for improving adiposity.
Why sweeteners may help
One reading is a small appetite-suppressing effect from the sweeteners. Another is that people used to sugary drinks find the jump to water too big, and something intermediate eases it. Randomized trials are more tightly controlled than epidemiology, where sweetener use is bundled with many other lifestyle habits.
Real-world reports
People report the same effect anecdotally, with commenters regularly describing losing 50, 75, or even 100 pounds by cutting out soda and drinking diet soda instead. That is a big lever for someone who had been having five or six Cokes a day. For someone who loses that much excess adipose tissue, a small change to the gut microbiome matters little, since their microbiome is likely much healthier after the loss.
How is sucralose different from sugar?
Sucralose is made from sucrose by replacing three hydroxyl groups with chlorine atoms. That change makes it about 600 times sweeter than sugar. The body absorbs only a small portion of it, and most passes through unchanged. Sweet taste is detected by a receptor pair on the tongue called T1R2 and T1R3.
Why do liquid calories fill people less?
In a 2000 study in the International Journal of Obesity, Dianne DiMeglio and Richard Mattes at Purdue gave people 450 calories of jelly beans or 450 calories of soda daily for four weeks. Those eating the jelly beans ate less food elsewhere, offsetting most of the extra calories. Those drinking soda did not compensate, and their body weight rose. Liquids pass through the stomach faster than solids.
How much sugar is in a can of cola?
A 12-ounce can of regular cola contains about 39 grams of sugar, around 140 calories, according to USDA nutrient data. Five or six cans a day would be 700 to 850 calories from sugar alone. Diet versions contain essentially no calories.
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