A man who "drank too much Diet Coke" said he refused to accept it was bad for him, before embarking on four weeks without the beverage in a bid to prove his belief. Paul Turner, , said people had been "going on at me for years" over his love of Diet Coke. But he would respond that is has zero calories or sugar, and said it was no worse than any other processed drink or food.
He would tell people he didn't drink tea or coffee, or eat meat, and he only had two alcoholic drinks at the weekend. Paul said: "I was aware that Diet Coke has the artificial sweetener aspartame in it, but then so do tonnes of drinks, even many fruit squashes and flavoured waters. People also told me what happened if you left a penny in a glass of coke and how it must be doing the same to my insides, but no way was I giving it up.
" But one day, without thinking about it, Paul "naturally decided to have a glass of water on occasion rather than open a can of Coke". He added: "I thought 'I can do this', so I did it some more. "Then, with my journalist's head on, I thought I could try an experiment in giving it up completely, almost, and then write about it.
I say almost as the rules of the game were that I would still have it as a mixer with my favourite weekend tipple, Tia Maria. "So, that was it, no more Diet Coke as a straight drink and basically none at all during the week." Before taking on his challenge, Paul said he would have a glass of Diet Coke at lunchtime, a second mid-afternoon and occasionally.