Every year millions of American's consume diet soda because they believe the reduction in calories will help with weight loss. After all it has the word diet in the products name. However, recent studies have proven that consumers who drink diet soda's are more likely to gain more weight than if they drank sugary drinks because of the artificial sweeteners the diet soda's contain. The study found that healthy adults who consumed at least one diet drink a day could increase their chance for weight gain . The study also proved earlier studies that have shown artificial sweeteners increase hunger because of the lack of calorie and energy intake (see artificial sweeteners). In the study the test subjects appeared to experience a physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, which drove them to overeat, .

A previous study done in 2005 by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio showed the same connection between diet soda consumption and weight gain, though at the time they did not attribute their findings to artificial sweeteners. In that study researchers found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas . There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day, Fowler says. Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese, .

The risk of becoming overweight or obese for regular soda drinkers is 26% for consumption of ½ can each day, 30.4% for consumption between ½ and 1 can each day, 32.8% for consumption of 1 to 2 cans each day, and 47.2% for consumption of 2 or more cans each day.

The risk of becoming overweight or obese for diet soda drinks is 36.5% for consumption of half a can each day, 37.5% for consumption between half a and 1 full can each day, 54.5% for consumption of 1 to 2 cans each day, and 57.1% for consumption of 2 or more cans each day.

The risk of becoming overweight or obese increases significantly people consume diet soda opposed to regular soda. Fifty-nine percent of Americans consume diet soda, making them the second-most-popular low-calorie, sugar-free products in the nation . That means that 59% of Americans are at least at a 26% high risk of gaining weight and/or becoming obese. Though diet soda is not solely responsible for increasing rates of obesity in this country, it does factor into the fact that two-thirds of American's are over-weight and one-third is obese.

Because there are no calories, people consume diet drinks in excess thinking that they are consuming something that will help them loose weight. People often mistake diet drinks for diets, says Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, You can't go into a fast-food restaurant and say, ‘Oh its's OK because I had a diet soda’

The fact of the matter is that even if American's cut out diet drinks from their diet, the same artificial sweetener responsible for weight gain in diet soda is thousands of other food and beverage products. So even if American's stop consuming diet soda, it is unclear if they will also stop gaining weight. The truth is, we're putting artificial sweetener in so many different things, in water, in yogurt, says Dr. Marie Savard, It's unclear if the result only adhere to diet sodas,.