Soft drinks made with artificial sweeteners, such as diet colas, do not help people lose weight and may be as big a part of the obesity problem as the full-sugar versions, academics have said.
A paper by researchers at Imperial College London and two universities in Brazil contends that artificially sweetened beverages, often called diet drinks, are just as big a problem as those containing sugar. There is no evidence they help people lose weight, they say, possibly because people assume they can eat more because their drinks are low in sugar.
The report says the combined factors of what goes into artificially sweetened drinks, how they are consumed, and their environmental impact mean that “far from helping to solve the global obesity crisis [they are] a potential risk factor for highly prevalent chronic diseases”.
Sugar-sweetened drinks, including sports beverages, have been identified as one of the major causes of obesity. Many countries, including Mexico and France, have introduced sugar taxes to try to reduce consumption, and the UK plans to do so next year.
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