And unfortunately I don't have a lot of confidence in federal regulatory bodies, especially in matters of health. There's usually too much lobbying going on behind the scenes.

But I will concede that yes the data is mostly correlational. That's not surprising because you can't really do randomized studies on live persons and make some drink diet and some drink sugar over a couple of years so you can observe them. Also, while there does seem to be a correlation, they aren't really sure why, so I will also agree that it's hard for someone like the FDA to outlaw something based on unknowns. So we can't say for certain.

But word to the wise, I guess ... there IS something going on with artificial sweeteners and obesity at a minimum and diabetes probably (in my opinion). We may not know how/why/what the connection is for a couple more decades, but ingest at your own risk. You really can't go wrong with water!