Article opens with, "There are lots of reasons to avoid processed foods. They’re often packed with sugar, fat and salt, and they tend to lack certain nutrients critical to health, like fiber."

Diet coke has no sugar, no fat, and less than 100 mg sodium. The specific results from Nature are about trehalose, a sugar not found in diet coke. I'm not aware of any diet soda that contains it, either. I realize it's an opinion piece, but pseudoscience and speculative articles should not be the domain of NYT.

Of note, the zero-calorie definition of artificial sweeteners is based on the amount excreted in urine/stool: It should be very close to the ingested amount. I find it hard to believe the conclusion drawn by the authors that other sweeteners (sucralose and saccharin), are consumed by bacteria since the amount ingested matches the amount excreted.