Diet Drinks or Water?

Obese patients enrolled in the six-month CHOICE trial at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, were twice as likely to lose 5% of their body weight no matter if they'd been randomly assigned to a water group or a diet drink group, as opposed to a control group.

But in every other result, water drinkers outshines the diet beverage drinkers, according to data presented at the Obesity Society's annual meeting.

The two intervention groups were instructed to replace at least 200 kcal of caloric beverages every day with either water or diet drinks. At six months, they said, there was no difference in absolute weight between the two study groups -- but those who drank water had a significantly greater improvement in fasting glucose and a trend toward a lower diastolic blood pressure compared to the control group.

At three months into the trial, participants consuming diet drinks were more likely to be consuming more calories in general compared to the water drinkers.

After six months, the diet beverage drinkers were more likely to consume non-sugar carbohydrates compared to the water group.

Diet beverage drinkers were also more likely to eat desserts, sweeteners and breads at three months, compared to the water drinkers.

There have been several recent studies actually linking diet beverages to weight GAIN, so the weight-loss percentage in this study is questionable as it is.

Let there be no doubt, however: water far outshines diet beverages in every way.