June 30/San Diego/American Diabetes Association -- Diet soft drinks may have minimal calories, but they can still have a major impact on your waistline, according to two studies presented at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.
Researchers at the Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio tracked 474 people, all 65-74 years old, for nearly a decade, measuring the subjects' height, weight, waist circumference, and diet soft drink intake every 3.6 years. The waists of those who drank diet soft drinks grew 70% more than those who avoided the artificially sweetened stuff; people who drank two or more servings a day had waist-circumference increases that were five times larger than non-diet-soda consumers.