Diet soda is one of those beverages that you either love or hate. And if you love it, you probably loooove it and can’t get enough of it, since it has addictive qualities.

And that’s not all it has.

Even with a name like “diet” and having zero calories, diet soda is hardly healthy for you. Yes, diet versions of soda don’t have the high fructose corn syrup like regular soda does, but do you know what the substitute is? Aspartame, a chemical sweetener that is known to cause many issues for lots of people, one of them being cravings. Since aspartame isn’t providing any calories (or energy), your body misses out and you crave even more.

But you can stop the cycle—that is, if you want to. Many diet soda drinkers love it so much that they don’t want to leave it. But we’re thinking this list of all the bad things about diet soda might help you take steps towards quitting.

The video at the end of this article highlights all sorts of things diet soda can do to us. Here are a few:

1. Depression.

   If you notice you’re feeling more down in the dumps than usual, and more consistently, you might need to lay off the diet beverages. A study published in PLOS ONE found that excessive drinking of diet drinks was associated with a higher risk of depression— likely due to all that aspartame.

2. Lower bone density.

   Slowly but surely, excessive diet soda can cause your bone density to worsen. If you might suspect this is happening, be sure to schedule a bone mineral density test, which can help you figure out what’s going on with your bone health. Low bone density can lead to osteoporosis.

3. Headaches.

   Again, that pesky aspartame might be to blame here. There’s evidence that aspartame can trigger headaches in some people—sometimes even debilitating migraines.

4. Mood changes.

   Diet drinks are often said to cause blood sugar fluctuations, which can really mess with your mood. So if you’re going from happy to sad to angry pretty quickly and you can’t help it, it might be time to put the Diet Pepsi down. This is especially important if you suffer from anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder.

5. Concentration issues.

   It’s not uncommon to experience a blood sugar crash after drinking a diet soft drink— and that pretty much feels like a 2 p.m. feeling all the time. Blood sugar crashes make it super hard to focus, which can cause your work to suffer.

6. Weight gain.

   Just because it’s zero calories doesn’t mean it won’t cause you to put on a few pounds. Aspartame can trigger sugar cravings, which can cause you to eat more of the sweet stuff. Plus, a study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics showed that pregnant women who drank diet soda were more likely to have overweight babies. That certainly can’t be good.

Need even more reasons to quit? Check out the video below for a bunch of other things you might not have known about diet soda:

Are you a diet soda drinker? Have you ever experienced any of these symptoms or tried to wean off of it? Share your experience!