Dr. Layne Norton

I think the issue is more so when you're consuming so much of it.

whatever negative deleterious effects are probably lost in the wash of so much energy toxicity, right?

Because you're getting so much negative effects from that.

So yeah, I hold open the possibility it could be uniquely deleterious, but I mean, I would tell anybody.

I mean one of the first things I look for in people when we're working with them is like, all right, do you drink sugar-sweetened beverages?

All right, let's cut those out, right?

Now when we come to – I know we've talked about artificially sweetened beverages because people will say – and here's where, again, messaging can have unintended consequences.

People will say, well, you don't want to have artificial or diet sodas because they're just as bad as regular sodas.

They come up with a bunch of different mechanisms to try to validate that.

No, objectively not.

Like in the human randomized control trials where they have people say either drink soda or use diet soda, very consistently people lose weight and like actually a pretty good amount of weight.

There was a year-long randomized control trial I think where people lost like seven and a half kilograms just by substituting diet soda for regular soda.

And, I mean, when I do content on this, I'll get people all the time comment, like, all I did was stop drinking regular soda and substitute it in diet soda, and I lost 50 pounds, right?

Now, but usually the next thing that people say is, well, why don't they just drink water?

Okay, again, I'm trying to meet people where they're at.

Okay, some people have developed a habit, behavior, whatever it is, of drinking a soda.

Water's great.

If I can drink water, fantastic.

But you're going to have a hard time convincing me they're not better off being 15 pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds lighter by using diet soda compared to regular soda, right?

And in several randomized control trials and meta-analyses now where they compare substituting regular soda with either water or diet soda…