What could be more American than drinking Coca-Cola? Yet more and more Americans are getting the message that if you want to be healthy, there’s really no room in your life for sugar-loaded soft drinks. According to a 2013 article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Americans began scaling back on sodas in the late 1990s due to worries about obesity and other health concerns.

Liquid sugar devoid of any fiber makes a straight shot into the bloodstream causing weight gain, blood spikes and metabolic chaos. Mix that sugar with the phosphoric acid usually found in sodas and you’ve got an acid so corrosive it will burn the paint off an automobile. Imagine what it does inside you! Osteoporosis is only one disastrous consequence.

To maintain sales, soft drink manufacturers introduced sugar-free diet sodas, and by 2010 these accounted for 31% of the soft drink market. But more recently diet soft drink sales have been declining even more rapidly than regular soda sales due to concerns about artificial sweeteners. According to one survey cited by the WSJ, more than half of those interviewed said they tried to avoid or at least limit artificial sweeteners in their diets.

The American Diabetic Association, the Academy of Dietetics and Nutrition, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) keep trying to reassure consumers that artificial sweeteners are safe. But scientific studies indicate otherwise.

Susan E. Swithers, PhD, professor at Purdue University, has suggested that artificial sweeteners, which stimulate the body with a sweet taste without providing the expected calories along with it, may cause metabolic derangements leading to diabetes and weight gain.  aspartame, the artificial sugar most commonly used in diet sodas, damages the part of the brain that governs appetite suppression. Aspartame also stimulates production of insulin, thus increasing fat storage and creating sugar cravings. Diet sodas and aspartame have also been linked with heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

So what are Americans drinking instead? Bottled water. According to a 2015 WSJ article, “Water is hot and diet soda is not.”

Don’t get us wrong. Americans still gulped down 12.76 billion gallons of soda in 2014. But bottled water consumption is on the rise, while soft drink consumption is declining. According to the WSJ, we consumed 10.87 billion gallons of bottled water in 2014, up 7.3% from 2013, while the above figure for soda represents a 1% decline. By 2017, industry trackers predict, bottled water sales will overtake soft drink sales.

While we might wish it was happening faster, this is certainly a positive trend that has a chance to significantly improve our national health.

It would be even better if people ditched expensive bottled waters, contaminated by chemicals from plastic bottles, which then burden our environment with mountains of plastic waste.