Wow - interesting stuff. Though, one major plus for diet drinks is that lots of times when people think they're hungry, they're actually partially dehydrated.

Wow - interesting stuff. Though, one major plus for diet drinks is that lots of times when people think they're hungry, they're actually partially dehydrated. This is really, really common, and drinking a lot more water, tea, and non-dehydrating liquid goes a long way to help weight loss. Anecdotally, after a knee injury two years ago, I put on a good amount of weight in a short period of time. When I went to cut back down a year ago, I drank a ton of diet sports drinks, and then just planned to each 350-600 calories 3-6 times per day, and executed on my plan. When I was hungry outside of my meal times, I just slammed a diet sports drink or seltzer water, and it worked well for me. Even if artificial sweeteners stimulate more appetite later, or don't satiate well, the gains from hydrating yourself could likely be worth it. But I suppose you could just use water, tea, or something else instead of diet soda. Final thought: I think people notice a lot of heavier people drinking diet drinks, which might seem to support the theory, but there could be some causation/correlation error there. People with slower metabolisms and people who are already above their target weight are more likely to drink diet drinks. People with ultra-fast metabolisms are more likely not to worry about it.