It’s completely fine. It’s been well established they are a fine substitute for sugar and can be a terrific tool in the tool box to use as a means to lose weight. They haven’t been shown to be dangerous in any human studies where they received a normal dose of AS. Unfortunately pseudoscience is exponentially more popular and sells more than actual evidence based science. Any doctor that has millions of subs/followers is almost guaranteed to be pseudoscience. I’m sure there’s an exception or two though
I probably wouldn’t drink diet soda all day and no other fluids but there’s a lot of middle ground between that and thinking AS are the worst thing ever. If it helps you cut down on sugar then it’s helping you tremendously
Simple answer yes, for a few different reasons. First, it’s full of chemicals that add no nutritional value. Second using diet soda doesn’t allow the brain to become adjusted to a less sweet diet. When you’re on a whole food healthy diet the brain adjusts to less simple sugar in meals and snacks. That’s why if you’re on a whole food diet when you cheat with your old favorite cake, candy, etc it usually seems too sweet and many people will find that cheating not worth it. I find myself better off with a simple flavored selzer, bubbles just a hint of flavor.
> When I look for literature, I can’t find anything that definitely proves they are bad
“Almost certainly unhealthy but hasn’t definitely been proven to kill you” seems like a really low bar for something you regularly put into your body.
I could share a bunch of links with you, but then you could say “that study is not definite enough for me.” (And that would be because the big money is not in getting people to drink tap water.)
It feels like you’re asking us to validate a (bad) decision you’ve already made.