Research

Energy balance

Increasing the intake of low- and no-calorie sweetened beverages (LNCSB) without substitution (i.e., adding them to the diet) is associated with lower body weight and waist circumference, but shows no significant association with type 2 diabetes risk.

Simply drinking more diet soda than you used to, without cutting out sugary drinks, might lead to a very small amount of weight loss over time. However, this increase in intake does not appear to lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

LimitedQualifiesLOW confidence
A 1 serving/day increase of LNCSB was associated with lower weight (MD -0.008 kg/year... and lower WC... but there was no association with risk of T2D (RR 1.02...)
Jennifer J. Lee et al. · Diabetes Care · 2022

Why this rating

Evidence is rated 'low' for weight/WC and 'very low' for T2D due to inconsistency, indirectness, and imprecision.

Source

Relation of Change or Substitution of Low- and No-Calorie Sweetened Beverages With Cardiometabolic Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Jennifer J. Lee et al. · Diabetes Care · 2022

DOI 10.2337/dc21-2130

Meta-analysis · 14 studiesCited 64×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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