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The trial results
Two cans a day of full-sugar soda should mean about 300 extra calories, yet swapping to diet versions doesn't change things as the calorie math says it should. The one clear difference is that fewer visits to the dentist for fillings.
What sweeteners do
The sweeteners are not inert. In kids they can change the brain so that it wants more sweetness in food, which makes bitter and sour flavors harder to teach. Even Stevia and the other so-called healthy sweeteners affect gut microbes, and saccharin and sucralose cause spikes in blood sugar.
How little is known
Sweeteners are probably not as bad as sugar, but they are not a health drink. Little is known about them, and none of the chemicals added to food goes through rigorous testing for its effect on gut microbes, because testing mechanisms haven't changed in 50 years.
How do saccharin and sucralose affect blood sugar?
In a 2014 study in Nature, Jotham Suez and Eran Elinav at the Weizmann Institute fed mice saccharin, and the animals developed glucose intolerance that could be transferred to germ-free mice through their gut bacteria. A 2022 study in Cell from the same group gave 120 healthy adults saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, or stevia for two weeks. Saccharin and sucralose changed gut microbes and blood sugar responses, and the effects differed from person to person.
Why do diet sodas still mean fewer cavities?
Mouth bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans ferment sugar into lactic acid, which dissolves tooth enamel. Sugar-free drinks starve these bacteria of fuel. Diet sodas are still acidic and can erode enamel directly, but the acid-producing cycle fed by sugar is absent. The Vipeholm study in Sweden, carried out between 1945 and 1953, tied how often people ate sugar to how many cavities they developed.
How was saccharin discovered by accident?
In 1879, Constantin Fahlberg was working in Ira Remsen's laboratory at Johns Hopkins University when he noticed an intensely sweet taste on his hands. The compound he traced it to was saccharin, which is about 300 times sweeter than sugar. Sugar shortages during the First World War helped push it into wide use. Sucralose came much later, made in 1976 by swapping three hydroxyl groups on sucrose for chlorine.
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