Four Reasons to Stop Drinking Diet Soda

There are about seven teaspoons of sugar in one can of Pepsi, which obviously isn’t good for your. But it turns out diet soda might be worse. Here are four reasons you might want to switch back to the real stuff . . .

1. Diet soda can cause migraines. The chemicals in the artificial sweetener have been shown to cause migraines, anxiety, and insomnia. And a study in 2013 found that when rats drank it, it damaged cells in the part of the brain associated with motor skills.

2. Everything else will taste worse. Artificial sweeteners overwhelm your taste buds, so other stuff doesn’t taste as good. Diet Coke has aspartame, which is 200 times sweeter than sugar. And Splenda is 600 times sweeter.

3. Drinking it actually increases your risk for diabetes. A recent study in Japan found that middle-aged guys who drank at least one diet soda a day were much more likely to develop type-2 diabetes over the next seven years.

4. It might not even help you lose weight. A bunch of recent studies have shown it does the opposite, including one that found you’re 65% more likely to become obese in the next decade if you drink diet soda.

And people who quit drinking it also tend to stop craving junk food as much because their taste buds wake up. So foods that aren’t loaded with salt and sugar start tasting better.