Those diet drinks are what caused the Gulf war syndrome, some theories state. The artificial sweetener, falsified testing on them proving them 'safe' are very misleading. If you google to find out, you'll see some very interesting information about 'diet' soft drinks.

I'm not sure where this originally came from. I don't have time to research it right now, but I found it interesting:

>In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick, she had stomach
>spasms, she was having a hard time getting around, to walk was a major
>chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed, she was in so
>much pain. By March 2002, she had undergone biopsies, and was on 24 various
>prescription medications. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with
>her. She was in so much pain, and so sick, she knew she was dying.
>
>She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest
>daughters name, and made sure her younger children were to be with her
>oldest daughter.
>She wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to Florida (basically in
>a wheelchair) for March 22nd. On March 19th I called her to ask her how one
>of her tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but
>they believe she had MS. I thought, oh, my....then I recalled an article a
>friend of mine emailed to me... and I asked her... Do you drink Diet pop?
>
>She told me yes, as a matter of fact she was getting ready to crack one open
>that moment, I told her not to open it, and stop drinking the diet
>pop....and I emailed her the following article. She called me within 32
>hours after our phone conversation and told me she stopped drinking the diet
>pop, and she can walk...she went up the stairs, and the muscle spasms went
>away. She said she didn't feel 100% but sure felt a lot better. She told me
>she was going to her doctors with this article and would call me back when she
>got home.
>
>She called me, and her doctor was amazed, he is going to call all of his MS
>patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweetener. In a nutshell,
>she was being poisoned by the aspartame in the diet soda, dying a slow death.
>
>When she got to FL March 22nd, all she had to take was one pill, and that
>was a pill for poisoning....she is well on her way to recovery!....and she
>is walking!!! No wheelchair!!!! This article saved her life! The life saving
>article:
>
>If it says "SUGAR FREE," on the label, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! I have
>spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on
>"ASPARTAME" marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.' In the keynote address
>by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an
>epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus, that it was hard to
>understand what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I stood up and said that I
>was there to lecture on exactly that subject.
>
>I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this
>sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to
>Formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic
>acidosis. (Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants.) The
>methanol toxicity mimics among other conditions multiple sclerosis. People
>were being diagnosed with having multiple sclerosis in error. The multiple
>sclerosis is not a death sentence, where methanol toxicity is!
>
>Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis,
>especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does
>not know that the aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use,
>irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become life-threatening.
>We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic once taken off
>diet sodas. In the case of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in
>reality, the disease is methanol toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear.
>We've seen m

Read the rest of this comment...