A lot of people have polar views on sweetening products, and in particular Aspartme, which is a very commonly used artificial sweetener in diet soft drinks. Personally, I, up to 6 weeks ago had a serial diet coke habit, and was using the excuse that I am T2 that this was better for me than drinking normal fizzy drinks.
I found that I were getting headaches on a regular basis, and after some research, this was linked to Aspartme, so reluctantly I cut diet drinks out of my diet completely, and now either drink water, or soda water. Result, I have seen something like at 75% reduction in headaches.
Just my experience, but I now have become a serial food packaging reader, and you will be surprised how many foods have artificial sweeteners in them! Of course, common sense is that for diabetics, we need to tightly control our glucose intake, and that these alternatives seem a great idea, but I am more concerned about the long term effects of these chemicals.