Recently, the WHO released a statement along the lines of "sugur free sweetener are bad for your health".
The research that was done does not say that. The communications goal was reported to warn against people who drink water, that switching to sweetener alternatives has no health benefits, and long term effects are unknown, so it's safer to not drink them".
However, that isn't really well communicated through the WHO's short statement and how media is reporting it.
If you drink a lot of sugary drinks, then artificial sweetener seems to be better than that. Switching to plain old water of course is also good. The benefit seems about the same. And drinking water long term is known to have benefits over drinking sugary drinks.
The studies DO NOT say that artificial sweeteners are bad for your health, poisoning you, causing diseases, or anything like that. So, if you are like me and occasionally drinking artificial sweeteners to replace sugary drinks then you are fine, but water is still the gold standard.
