No mainstream soda qualifies as healthy, but some newer options are significantly less harmful than a regular Coca-Cola or Pepsi. The answer depends on what you’re comparing against and which tradeoffs matter most to you: sugar content, artificial sweeteners, acidity, or gut health claims.
What Makes Regular Soda So Bad
A standard 12-ounce can of regular soda contains about 39 grams of added sugar. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 36 grams per day for men and 25 grams for women. One can puts men at their daily ceiling and pushes women well past it, before accounting for sugar in anything else they eat that day. That sugar load drives weight gain, insulin resistance, and tooth decay. It’s not a close call: drinking regular soda daily is one of the clearest dietary risks you can avoid.
Diet Soda: Zero Sugar, Not Zero Concerns
Diet sodas replace sugar with non-nutritive sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, or stevia. They contain zero calories and no sugar, which sounds like a clean win. The reality is more complicated.
The World Health Organization reviewed the available evidence and concluded that replacing sugar with non-nutritive sweeteners does not help with weight control in the long term. People who switch to diet soda don’t reliably lose body fat over time compared to those who simply cut soda altogether. The WHO now advises against using these sweeteners as a weight management strategy.
Aspartame, the most studied artificial sweetener, was classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2B) in 2023, based on limited evidence linking it to liver cancer. That’s the same category as aloe vera and pickled vegetables. It means the signal exists but isn’t strong enough to confirm a real risk. The acceptable daily intake remained unchanged at 40 mg per kilogram of body weight. For a 150-pound person, that’s roughly 14 cans of diet soda a day, a threshold almost no one reaches.
So diet soda is dramatically better than regular soda in terms of sugar. But it’s not a health food, and the long-term picture on sweeteners remains unsettled.
Prebiotic Sodas: The Trendy Middle Ground
Brands like Olipop and Poppi have carved out a niche as “functional” sodas. They’re lower in sugar (typically 2 to 5 grams per can), lightly carbonated, and contain prebiotic fiber, usually inulin derived from chicory root or agave. The pitch is that they support gut health while still tasting like soda.
Inulin does have real science behind it. Research has shown that inulin-rich foods boost populations of beneficial gut bacteria while reducing harmful ones, help people feel full longer, and reduce cravings for unhealthy foods. Studies have also found that inulin supplements can reduce insulin resistance in people with type 2 diabetes. These are meaningful benefits, but there’s an important caveat: the amounts of inulin in a single can of prebiotic soda are relatively small compared to the doses used in clinical research. You’d likely get more prebiotic fiber from eating a banana, some garlic, or a serving of oats.
The sugar content is genuinely low. At 2 to 5 grams, these drinks sit well within daily limits and won’t spike your blood sugar the way regular soda does. If you’re choosing between a Coke and an Olipop, the Olipop is clearly the better pick. Whether it actively improves your health is a different, harder question.
Erythritol: A Sweetener Worth Watching
Some “natural” and low-calorie sodas use sugar alcohols like erythritol as sweeteners. Erythritol has nearly zero calories and doesn’t raise blood sugar, which made it popular in keto and diabetic-friendly products. Recent research, however, has raised flags.
A study published in JACC: Advances tracked over 4,000 adults without prior cardiovascular disease for roughly eight years. Higher blood levels of erythritol were significantly associated with heart failure hospitalization, cardiovascular death, and overall mortality, even after adjusting for traditional risk factors like age, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Separate research confirmed a link between erythritol levels and increased risk of major cardiovascular events in patients undergoing cardiac evaluation.
These are observational studies, which means they can identify associations but can’t prove erythritol directly causes heart problems. It’s possible that people with metabolic issues simply produce or accumulate more erythritol naturally. Still, the consistency of the findings across multiple studies is notable. If you’re drinking products sweetened with erythritol regularly, it’s worth keeping an eye on this research as it develops.
Every Soda Still Erodes Your Teeth
One thing all sodas share, including sugar-free and prebiotic versions, is acidity. Carbonation itself creates carbonic acid, and most sodas add citric or phosphoric acid for flavor. Research published in JADA Foundational Science found that nearly all carbonated beverages tested had a pH below 5.5, the threshold at which tooth enamel begins to erode. Carbonated drinks caused significantly more surface damage than noncarbonated ones, regardless of sugar content.
This means switching to a zero-sugar soda protects you from cavities caused by bacterial sugar metabolism, but it doesn’t protect your enamel from acid erosion. Drinking through a straw and rinsing with water afterward can reduce contact time, but no carbonated drink is truly tooth-friendly.
The Most Honest Answer
If you’re looking for the healthiest thing to drink, it’s water, sparkling water without added acids or sweeteners, or unsweetened tea. No soda, however cleverly formulated, competes with those options.
But if you currently drink regular soda and want a stepping stone, the landscape has genuinely improved. Prebiotic sodas offer low sugar, some fiber, and none of the artificial sweetener questions. Diet sodas eliminate sugar entirely, with sweetener risks that appear small at normal consumption levels. Both are vastly better than a daily habit of full-sugar soda. The “healthiest soda” is whichever one helps you drink less of the worst one.