I am a diet soda addict and I am not a scientist, but personally I think articles like this tend to bury this point: > One problem with sweeteners in the diet

I am a diet soda addict and I am not a scientist, but personally I think articles like this tend to bury this point: > One problem with sweeteners in the diet of children, Sibson says, is that the more children consume them, the more they develop a sweet palate and therefore crave sweetness in all its forms, with or without sugar Drinking sweet things gives you a sweet tooth! If we assume sweeteners are perfectly safe, wouldn't we still expect people who e.g. drink sweetened drinks instead of plain water to be more likely to gain weight overall, because they have a preference for sweet things and lots of sweet things have calories? Personally I'm not worried about it: my high consumption of sweetened drinks has not stopped me losing weight by the conventional method of eating less. There is another ingredient in soda that's more problematic (caffeine can mess up your sleep, and if you sleep badly it's a lot easier to gain weight).