All carbonated drinks are bad for you, esp if you are a woman as they quicken osteoporosis. They are very good at descaling kettles and cleaning old coins though. What does that tell you?!

I don't care how healthy it may be, it's disgusting. Normal Coke FTW.

Because normal coke tastes like syrup in comparison to Diet/Zero. Its just too sugary!

Is caffeine not an active ingredient?

Watered down, flat Coke? No thanks.

Caffeine being coke's active ingredient is arguable, at a guess most people wouldn't buy it for the caffeine content (you'd get more from coffee anyway), whereas in (say) Red Bull most people would be buying it for the caffeine.

I can't see how it would be any worse for you than normal coke

bad for your teeth, but still better than sugar soda.
drinking sugar water whether its juice or soda tends to be a poor use of calorie allotments regardless....its just not filling

Perhaps she prefers the taste of diet coke to normal coke? I wouldn't touch normal coke as I find it too sickly. Diet coke however is, apart from the 2 or 3 litres of water I drink a day, my drink of choice. Nothing to do with the word 'diet'. I just like the taste.

its fine in small amounts like with most things

I love Diet Coke, especially with ice and a slice and much prefer it to the full fat version.

I much prefer diet coke nowdays I have actually got used to the taste. The normal one tastes full of sugar. I do not drink it that often but I once drank a large diet coke from the cinema and felt rather spaced out afterwards. It was a verry big drink though.

I'm another one in the 'Just for the taste of it' camp - Full Coke is just too syruppy for my liking.

And whilst people are correct in saying that Chips & DC isn't exactly a healthy option, it is at least marginally better than Chips and normal coke.

I drink Pepsi (not diet or Max) because I like the taste and it's refreshing when it's cold from the fridge. In fact, in hot weather I drink Pepsi instead of tea. But I hate Coke.

Sugar is bad for you I'm afraid, especially in large quantities, regardless of whether you can burn off the calories or not.

As for coke, I don't really drink it or any fizzy drink, but if I'm having it (with JD for example ) it's diet all the way for me, can't stand the oversweetness of the original and the way it furs my teeth up

The logic of having a diet coke with a burger or other unhealthy foods is sound. Reducing overall calories in any way is sound logic.

There is no significant health issue with Aspartame.

Carbonated drinks do not cause osteoporosis.

There do seem to be a lot of myths flying around.

I prefer Coca Cola Zero.

Well yes, large quantities will give you diabetes and obesity issues, but large quantities of most things won't really do you much good. It's actually quite hard to find journals on the topic of sugar being bad for you or not, `bad for you' is a pretty vague term in itself for starters, and most articles are obviously heavily biased one way or the other, the BMJ and The Lancet don't seem to have much.

So why do hospitals put people on glucose drips then

Because sugar as sold in shops or contained in sweets and cakes is mainly sucrose, not glucose.

There are some very good web sites that explain the difference between sucrose and glucose.

Anyone interested there's a good documentary on aspertame here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-usbGZez40

I enjoy the Sainsburys Classic Caffeine Free Diet Cola and find it doesn't erm irritate my bladder the way other carbonated caffeine free drinks do - perhaps down to Sucralose being used as a sweetener instead of Aspartame.

What posts were you looking at? Where was anything said about sucrose, sweets or cakes

What I quoted was a blanket statement that sugar is bad. What I posted was an example that illustrates that sugar is not necessarily 'bad'.

I'm just wondering whether drinking large quantities of regular coke can affect your bladder and significantly increase the amount of times you have to go to the toilet? I have drunk quite large amounts recently and this has resulted in me suddenly getting abdominal pains and having the sudden urge to rush to the toilet

I've stayed off the coke for a few days and have been drinking squash which seems to have calmed my insides down.

Your post clearly asked why drips in hospitals use glucose in response to a post that said sugar is bad for you.

As you did not seem to know that sugar is sucrose and that the body has to break it down into glucose which is the used for energy, I was letting you know.