Soda

The Dr Pepper Ten ads have sparked a lot of controversy in the past month for their perceived sexism. The beverage is targeted to men, with ads claiming there's nothing girlie or unmanly about this diet drink. So we rounded up a group of male and female taste testers and tried it alongside regular Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper. Check out what our tasters had to say about Dr Pepper Ten.

The promise: "A unique blend of sweeteners that delivers the iconic flavor and beverage experience of regular Dr Pepper with just 10 calories."

See if the promise held up.

Now that we're in the trust tree, let me be completely honest with you about something — soda is downright dangerous to drink. Aside from the health risks including bone loss, hypertension, and dental decay, soda drinks like Coke are full of sugar, caramel coloring, high-fructose corn syrup and often leave you thirstier — not exactly the crème de la crème of beverages.

Contrary to popular belief, not all carbonated drinks are bad for you — sparking water is sugar free and can keep calcium locked in your bones (no studies have backed up the preconceived notion that sparkling water actually leaches calcium out of your bones).

For those of you that like that thirst-quenching appeal that carbonated beverages provide, you may be able to slowly wean yourself off soda once-and-for-all with one of these delicious and easy carbonated drink alternatives.

1. Fizzy Lemonade: Squeeze about three to four large lemons in a large pitcher. Pour in six cups of soda water and stir until all of the lemon is mixed in the water. Add four to five tablespoons of agave nectar for sweetness. Refrigerate for about an hour and then add in 2-3 cups of ice cubes. Garnish with some lemon slices.

Here are some more DIY carbonated drink options.

Coca-Cola has won the latest battle in its long-standing sales war against Pepsi. In 2010, for the first time ever, US sales of Diet Coke overtook those of Pepsi-Cola. The statistics are shocking, and certainly indicative of America's increasing focus on diet. Although the fridge at Sugar HQ is stocked with everything from Coke to Canada Dry, my soda tendencies are aligned with the American populace. My go-to soda, any day of the week, is a Diet Coke. What's yours?

What's old is new again. At the beginning of last year, PepsiCo started an eight-week run of two drinks, Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, that came in vintage packaging and were free of high-fructose corn syrup. Now, running on the success of those two special-edition drinks, Pepsi has decided to keep the past in its future.

According to Amy Wirtanen, the marketing director for Pepsi Throwback, the drinks will become a permanent part of Pepsi's beverage line. "It's a return to a simpler world," added Shiv Singh, PepsiCo's digital chief. "There's a massive teen trend around simplicity and authenticity."

Nostalgic purchases aren't just big for Pepsi: according to USA Today, yesteryear-inspired fare is blowing up in every segment from sneakers to apparel. Frito-Lay found such success in a 1980s-inspired throwback Doritos Taco Flavor that too will become permanent in the next month. I've always wondered whether the nostalgic items truly take off for their nod to the past, or simply because they're limited-edition menu items. Now, time will tell.

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For those of us trying to watch what we eat or decrease our sugar intake, bad news on the diet soda front: a new study says that drinking the diet-friendly beverage may increase the risk of stroke by 61 percent. This study takes on even more meaning after hearing the news that more stokes are hitting young and middle-aged individuals.

The study, based on 2,564 people living in New York City with an average age of 69, found that people who regularly drank diet soda were more likely to have a "vascular event" compared to individuals who don't drink the carbonated beverage. Even when researchers took into account other factors like metabolic syndrome, heart disease history, and peripheral vascular disease, the risk of stroke was still 48 percent higher amongst diet soda drinkers. Hannah Gardener, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and lead researcher on the project, says that these findings are still in the very early stages. And while they are able to show that diet soda does increase the risk of stroke, they still don't know why that is.

This is just another reason to skip out on that Coke Zero; past studies indicate that diet soda is bad for the kidneys, bone density, and may be the source of chronic headaches. If you can't put down that can quite yet, try this 28-day plan to give it up for good.

First there were sit-down marijuana restaurants, and now there's this: Canna Cola, a line of soft drinks laced with medical marijuana.

Commercial artist and Canna Cola entrepreneur Clay Butler has created a cola drink that contains the psychoactive marijuana ingredient THC; $10 to $15 will get drinkers a 12-ounce bottle. In addition, he's producing Doc Weed, a spin on Dr Pepper; Sour Diesel, a lemon-lime flavor; and Orange Kush, his version of the citrus drink.

I'm interested in seeing how well Canna Cola takes off. Do you think these drinks will reach an all-time high?

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Ah, high fructose corn syrup. The highly debated sweetener in many processed foods and drinks, recently the subject of a marketing campaign and name change, is again in the news, and it's not good for its image makeover. An extensive 22-year study released this month that followed almost 80,000 women has found that drinking non-diet sodas regularly, leads to an increase in the risk for gout.

Gout, a painful form of arthritis, is caused by high levels of uric acid in the blood. While some foods can trigger a gout attack, the illness is not the "rich man's disease" (caused by a meat- and alcohol-heavy diet) that it was previously believed to be. But this new study does show that diet does play a part, and regularly drinking beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup is a major cause — and so are fruit juices like orange juice, since they are high in fructose as well. To find out how much drinking one regular soda or two glasses of orange juice a day increases your risk of developing gout, read more.

When it comes to medical opinions, it's sometimes wise to get a second one, which is what I am asking of you, oh wise FitSugar readers. A fan of Dr. Oz, I watched his show the other day where he mapped out a 28-day plan to rid one of his audience members of her 12-sodas-a-day drinking habit. A cola junkie, she seemed excited about their plan to walk away from the bubbly drinks, but I'm just not sure I'm buying his month-long program.

Curious to see what it is?