Diet soda- how bad is it?

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I don't drink soda (or ginger as we call it here) much. But, if I do, it's always the full sugar one. I'm actually allergic to a group of preservatives (sodium benzoate and related products), which most diet drinks contain (and some originals too like our local drink Irn Bru). These have been linked to childhood hyperactivity too, which can't be good. I also like to avoid aspartame, as I do believe there's no smoke without fire on this one. So if I want a refreshing cool drink, I have pure fruit juice, watered down with water.

Non-diet sodas with the high sugar content are far worse.

It was not even been proven that aspartame is harmful.
You would have to digest 100 hundred times more than the average human drinks in a lifetime for it to effect you.
A large amount was given to lab rats and they developed cancer.
Humans are obviously bigger than lab rats and the small amount in sodas won't hurt you.

The obesity epidemic is caused by sugar and becoming obese is more likely than developing cancer from a small amount of aspartame.
I am currently taken a nutrition class and know quite a bit about this subject.

diet soda has [so far] kept me from ending up like my late father [300+# and diabetic/heart disease/totally cripple by arthritis et al]. so it may not be as good for me as eating strictly macrobiotic and living in a commune, but it still has been better for me than many less healthy alternatives.

I don't trust aspartame or sucralose or even HFC. You should try stevia, since its natural and it has thousands of years of history as opposed to a few decades. Sucralose (Splenda) Is actually an organochloride, a typical chemical class for pesticides. In fact, it was discovered accidentally by a researcher who was trying to synthesize new pesticides. The lab assistant thought he was instructed to taste the concoction, and it turned out to be sweet.

I, myself drink a lot of organic, unsweetened herbal teas. Hibiscus flower tea is really good and loaded with antioxidants. Its really red and almost tastes like wine. It tastes good with a little bit of honey or stevia too.

It saves on aluminum (possibly a neuro-toxin) and shipping costs and weights to just drink tea as well. Better yet, drink water. Out ancestors survived millions of years without carmel pigmented, fizzy sugar water. I think we can too.

No artificial sweetener tastes sweet to me, kind of a major FAIL in my opinion...

Wow, I'd been told that saccharin causes cancer, but didn't really know all the stuff about aspartame. I always thought that diet soda pops had a sort of synthetic, artificial, "chemical" taste, & sometimes a downright icky aftertaste, but figured it was still better than ingesting all that sugar.

I don't need to lose weight, so the excess calories aren't a problem so much for me, but I know it isn't good to have my teeth continually bathed in sugar water & carbonic acid. More problematic for me is the caffeine - I've frequently had insomnia, so it can be a major sleep-robber if I consume it at the wrong time of day.

So I've tried to switch to water. But sometimes I crave something a little more flavorful. If I must have diet soda, ginger ale or root beer are my current choices - no caffeine, less aftertaste. Or sometimes Gatorade.

Drinking anything but water is simply a risk.
Eating sugars is far worse though, as another poster said. Sugars are the easiest way to gain weight, period.

It just doesn't taste sweet to me! It tastes awful!