{"id":539084,"date":"2026-04-19T08:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539084\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T08:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:15:24","slug":"artificially-sweetened-beverages-may-benefit-healthy-weight-but-water-works-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539084\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificially sweetened beverages may benefit healthy weight, but water works better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<a property=\"item\" typeof=\"WebPage\" title=\"Go to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.\" href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\" class=\"home\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Home<\/a> \/ <a property=\"item\" typeof=\"WebPage\" title=\"Go to News.\" href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\/news\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a> \/ Artificially sweetened beverages may benefit healthy weight, but water works better<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pouring-water-2000x1125-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Person pouring water from a faucet into a glass\" style=\"object-fit:cover;\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tHide caption<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tShow caption<\/p>\n<p>\tJacob Wackerhausen \/ iStock<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">Replacing sugary drinks (SSBs) with artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs)\u2014or ideally water\u2014may help people lose weight, according to a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0002916526000705\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">study<\/a> by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In addition, they found that drinking more ASBs or water may help people gain less weight over time, compared to people who drink more SSBs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">The study, published March 6 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analyzed health and dietary data from 143,000 participants in the\u00a0Nurses\u2019 Health Study, the\u00a0Nurses\u2019 Health Study II, and the\u00a0Health Professionals Follow-up Study collected over a median of 28 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">Researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\/research\/mattei-group\/our-team\/alan-espinosa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alan Espinosa<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\/profile\/josiemer-mattei\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josiemer Mattei<\/a>, and colleagues found that increasing ASB intake was associated with less weight gain over time, particularly among people with overweight or obesity or those who were consuming high amounts of SSBs at the start of the study. People who increased the amount of water they drank were also less likely to experience unhealthy long-term weight gain, while people who increased their SSB consumption were more likely to gain weight over time. Replacing SSBs with ASBs was associated with weight loss; however, the researchers found that water was the best substitute for both SSBs and ASBs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">Read the study: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0002916526000705\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Artificially sweetened beverages and weight change: findings from 3 prospective cohort studies of United States adults<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">Read Healthline coverage: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthline.com\/health-news\/artificially-sweetened-drinks-may-promote-weight-loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Artificially-Sweetened Drinks Help Promote Weight Loss, but Water Is Best<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\nLast Updated<\/p>\n<p>Get the latest public health news<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-block-animation has-fly-in-animation\">Stay connected with Harvard Chan School<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Home \/ News \/ Artificially sweetened beverages may benefit healthy weight, but water works better Hide caption Show&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[102,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-539084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}