The Skinny on Diet Soda - Curse or Blessing?

 HEARD A LOT OF BAD THINGS ABOUT DIET SODA? SO HAVE I. HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS I'VE HEARD.  YOUR FEEDBACK IS REQUESTED. SCARIEST FACT (OR MYTH) EXCESS DIET SODA CONTRIBUTES TO CANCER OF THE PANCREAS. THE SWEETENER ASPARTAME CAUSES HEADACHES, OR WORSE DAMAGE TO THE BODY. THE SODA IS NOT CALORIC IN ITSELF, BUT THE SWEET TASTE WILL CAUSE CRAVINGS FOR REAL SUGAR, OR INCREASE YOUR APPETITE IN GENERAL. DIET SODA CAUSES FLUID RETENTION,   ORDIET SODA CAUSES DEHYDRATION.Can't be both, can it?CAFFEINE IS A DIURETIC, CAUSES WATER LOSS. DIET SODA IS ADDICTIVE.  This one I can personally verify.A few years ago, I noticed my need for diet soda was becoming unmanageable.  As soon as I got up in the morning, I would stress over, where is the diet soda? Alcoholics look for alcohol first thing in the morning.  If I became frantic first thing in the morning, looking for my "fix", I recognized I was addicted to diet soda. WHY???  Discovered that one of its ingredients is  ANTI-DEPRESSANT in nature.  I was self-medicating my depression with diet soda.Some say the diet soda people are DELIBERATELY trying to addict us, the same way cigarette people hooked smokers. THIS IS NO JOKE.  There is an ingredient in Diet Cola, an amino acid, that is also contained in the heavy duty psychiatric drug, Zyprexa.  I took Zyprexa for a while, and noticed that one of the anti-depressant effects in it, was theSAME thing as in the Diet Cola.