Why diet soft drinks really aren’t as unhealthy as people make out

Unless you're guzzling down hundreds of them in one sitting, you don't have much to worry about

You've probably been told that drinking diet soft drinks is bad for you. Some even go so far as to say sugary soft drinks are better, because they contain fewer "chemicals". But none of this is grounded in hard evidence. Personal trainer James Smith made this point in a recent video posted on social media. Quick disclaimer: James says c**t a lot. So stick some headphones in.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CEI57CMgWL7/

Reports in The Sun had claimed drinking diet soft drinks put your body into "fat storage mode".

Smith pointed out that fat storage only occurs when there is excess energy in the blood.

In other words, you're eating too much, and consuming too many calories. No rocket science involved here.

Claims that diet soft drinks are as addictive as class A drugs are "well off the mark", Smith says.

"If you want to have a nice, cold, fizzy, sugar free drink - with sweeteners - as part of your balanced regime to lose fat, absolutely f***ing do it."

The main artificial sweetener in most diet soft drinks is aspartame, but you needn't believe the scare stories according to Smith.

"Aspartame is, on the whole, harmless."

Smith continued: "A load of f***ing idiots say, 'When you see obese people they're always drinking Diet Coke'. Yeah, well it's not the Diet Coke that's causing them to be obese."

Smith says for someone of his size, he could safely put away 50-60 diet soft drinks per day without suffering toxicity from sweeteners.

Scare stories in other media outlets have pointed to the free methanol you ingest when you consume diet soft drinks.

This is as misleading as it gets.

Firstly, there is three times the amount of free methanol in fruit juice. Secondly, you would need to drink as much as 500 cans in one sitting to ingest 10ml of free methanol, the likely toxic dose.

Good luck with that.