New research says to drink water and skip diet soda

According to Food Mic, drinking calorie free soda will not help you lose weight. In fact, the research claims that it will increase your chances of gaining weight.

Diet Soda is calorie-free, but it won't necessarily help you lose weight. The report found that over the course of about a decade, diet soda drinkers had a 70% greater increase in waist measure compared with non-drinkers. People who drank two or more sodas a day experienced a 500% greater increase. Diet sodas won’t just slow your metabolism; they also turn on your “fat genes” by confusing the body.

The chemicals found in diet sodas act as irritants to your body. This makes it harder for people to absorb the nutrients in their food, and your body compensates by "calling in" its natural defenses, which in turn creates inflammation.

Diet soda throws off the metabolism by dulling the body's responses to sugar

The first way that diet sodas cause weight gain is by slowing down your metabolism. A fast metabolism is highly efficient at not only losing weight but keeping it off as it allows your body to burn more calories naturally. Diet sodas have no calories and are highly processed foods -- diet soda is mostly already digested for your body, so the metabolism boost your body typically gets from breaking down drinks never happens.

That’s when you start gaining weight and not burning it.

Artificial sugar increases your waistline

A new study followed drinkers of low-calorie sweeteners in soda for ten years and compared them with people who don’t use artificial sugar. It found that the low-calorie sweetener users had larger waist measures and more abdominal obesity than the non-users.

Low-calorie sweetener consumption destroys fat deposition, a high-risk factor for heart disease and mortality. This inflammation causes your fat genes to turned on, which leads to increases in new belly fat and makes it much tougher for you to lose any existing fat around your stomach.

A better alternative to diet soda can be Vitamin Water Zero which has zero calories, but it's sweetened with Stevia instead of aspartame. Or you might try sparkling mineral water, but sparkling water also has some risks. The best (and cheapest) alternative to soda really is just plain 'ole 100% water.