How safe is it to drink diet coke?

[reidy3000]

Hi,
I'm worried about the effects of drinking diet coke, I drink about 1 litre/day and have heard that the sweetner used called Aspartame is dodgy. Is there a safe diet equivelant (other than water) as I don't want to start growing 2 heads!

[WendyW]

Some of the fruit teas are nice.

[Cetti]

Perhaps a 1litre of Diet Coke every day is just a tiny bit excessive - and any drink apart from water has calories - so why not give your system a holiday and either drink fruit teas, as Wendy suggested, or try some of the many cordials on the market? You're right about Aspartame - I won't have anything that includes this ingredient - but it's a very grey area and opinions differ whether it's dangerous or not, but if in doubt - leave it out.

[sft42]

Having talked to some child psychologists recently in the course of my work one of them expressed grave concerns about aspartame being a big contributary factor in ADHD and similar disorders. However this was just a personal opinion he was at pains to point out and not medical fact so the jury is still out on this one. The best thing you can do is to buy a juicer and lots of fruit and have fun experimenting.

[Gef]

Why not try pure fruit juice such as tomato (my favourite) or orange etc. I don't like sweetened drinks but if I had to I would take "normal" coke and miss out on the odd chocolate bar - the number of calories in coke is not as high as you might think.

[Cactus]

If i drank 1 litre of diet coke a day, i'd be more worried about the amount of caffein i was getting from it. I'd drastically cut down if i were you, try fruit juice like the others suggest. The Tropicana orange that comes in screw cap cartons is gorgeous, and healthy too. Cranberry juice is supposed to be healthy too, i've heard about it helping to prevent Cancer, but i'm not sure if it's been scientifically proven or not.

[whiskygalore]

Hello Reidy. This article suggests that you have to drink a lot more than a litre a day to feel the effects of aspartame: http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,8211
46,00.html