People are fairly knowledgeable of the hazards of drinking a regular soda. The immense amounts of sugar and high fructose corn syrup do not do a body good. However, as this article shows, diet sodas, which are oft marketed as being better for a person to consume, are in fact quite unhealthy themselves.

As reported by The New York Times, a research team has "found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome — the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels, and elevated blood pressure."

The raw numbers overall do not go well for the modern Western diet, but the problematic nutrition content is made worse by diet soda, since "the risk of developing metabolic syndrome was 34 percent higher among those who drank one can of diet soda a day compared with those who drank none."

Source:

Bakalar, Nicholas, "Symptoms: Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda", New York Times, February 5th, AD 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/nutrition/05symp.html?_r=1, accessed May 29th, AD 2009.