Popping bottles of diet soda—instead of regular soda—is a better bet if you hope to avoid type 2 diabetes, according to a study recently published by a group of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“Drinking regular soda and other sugary drinks increases a person’s risk of diabetes, but not artificially sweetened soft drinks, coffee, or tea,” said Lawrence de Koning, a postdoctoral fellow at HSPH who served as a data analyst for the study.

The research, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, examined the relationship between regular and diet beverages as a risk factor for diabetes by looking at the medical status and dietary habits of more than 40,000 healthy men.

For the duration of the study, which lasted from 1986 to 2000, researchers observed the participants’ average weekly intake of sugar and artificially sweetened beverages.

The findings showed that men who drank one daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages, which include sodas, fruit punches, and lemonades, were 16 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than men who did not drink sugary beverages.

Diet soda, on the other hand, was not associated with elevated risk for diabetes.

Prior studies have suggested that the consumption of diet soda may increase an individual’s risk for diabetes, but de Koning said the link was probably due to other factors that diet soda drinkers and diabetics have in common, such as obesity, poor diet, and high cholesterol.

The study also showed that replacing one serving of sugar-sweetened beverage with a cup of coffee each day reduces the risk for diabetes by 17 percent.

Though diet sodas appeared to be a safer alternative to regular sodas, de Koning said there are other healthier options than artificially sweetened drinks to quench your thirst.

“The cheapest alternative is certainly water, which is not associated with any major risk, while coffee is quite beneficial since it is inversely related to diabetes,” he said.

However, de Koning cautioned that, even though the evidence is not strong, drinking excessive amount of diet sodas may lead to kidney abnormality, electrolyte disturbance, and increase in preterm birth among pregnant women.

— Staff writer Jane Seo can be reached at janeseo@college.harvard.edu.