Heads Up: Diet Soda Is Just As Bad For Your Heart As The Regular Stuff

I'm not necessarily a proponent of New Year's resolutions, especially going into 2021 when your only resolution should be "survive." But the coming year may be a good time to kick your Diet Coke habit, based on the results of a recent study proclaiming that diet soda is just as bad for you as the regular stuff.

According to a new research letter published in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (hat tip to Yahoo! Life for the original story), artificially sweetened drinks and regular soda are equally detrimental to your heart health. The study included more than 100,000 participants who drank sugary sodas and "artificially-sweetened drinks" over the course of 10 years. Turns out, both those who drank sugary beverages and those who drank the artificial stuff had an increased risk of heart disease.

"Our study suggests artificially sweetened beverages may not be a healthy substitute for sugar drinks," wrote Eloi Chazelas, a PhD student and lead author of the study. "This data provides additional arguments to fuel the current debate on taxes, labeling and regulation of sugary drinks and artificially sweetened beverages."

Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard about the negative consequences of diet sodas, which have been linked to strokes, heart attack, and early death. Further proof that lower calorie content doesn't always = healthy. Are diet soda's risks worth it for your thrice-daily Diet Fanta quota? I'll leave that up to you, dear reader.