Diet Sodas & Stroke...

[Jetfire]

http://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20110209/is-diet-soda-linked-to-heart-stroke-risk

Feb. 9, 2011 (Los Angeles) -- You may feel less guilty if you opt for diet sodas over sugary beverages, but drinking them regularly may raise your risk of heart attack and stroke, a study suggests.

I just saw this on the news and looked it up.

I drink diet sodas alot...guess I should stop.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, really, you should stop drinking soda in general.

 

[Jetfire]

I know...I don't drink them as much as I did...mostly water with drink mix now.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I hate diet pop. It has no taste. I drink only regular.

 

[Brolan]

Typical study that confuses cause and effect. What sounds more likely? Drinking diet soda creates a higher stroke risk? Or the people who feel the need to drink diet soda tend to have more strokes?

 

[Skywalker]

Drinking diet soda's a bad idea all around, since most of them contain aspartame.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Drinking diet soda's a bad idea all around, since most of them contain aspartame.

It's not dangerous unless taken to ridiculous levels of excess like drinking more than 21 diet sodas per day for an average-sized man, and even then it's only dangerous through gradual accumulation over time.

The safety of aspartame has been studied extensively since its discovery with research that includes animal studies, clinical and epidemiological research, and post-marketing surveillance,[49] with aspartame being one of the most rigorously tested food ingredients to date.[50] Peer-reviewed comprehensive review articles and independent reviews by governmental regulatory bodies have analyzed the published research on the safety of aspartame and have found aspartame is safe for consumption at current levels.[5][49][18][51] Aspartame has been deemed safe for human consumption by over 100 regulatory agencies in their respective countries,[51] including the UK Food Standards Agency,[52] the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)[53] and Canada's Health Canada.[54]

Intake

The acceptable daily intake (ADI) value for aspartame, as well as other food additives studied, is defined as the "amount of a food additive, expressed on a body weight basis, that can be ingested daily over a lifetime without appreciable health risk."[55] The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Food has determined this value is 40 mg/kg of body weight for aspartame,[56] while FDA has set its ADI for aspartame at 50 mg/kg.[57]

The primary source for exposure to aspartame in the United States is diet soft drinks, though it can be consumed in other products such as pharmaceutical preparations, fruit drinks, and chewing gum among others in smaller quantities.[5] A 12 ounce can of diet soda contains 180 mg of aspartame, and for a 75 kilograms (165 lb) adult, it takes approximately 21 cans of diet soda, per day, to consume the 3,750 mg of aspartame that would surpass the FDA's 50 milligrams per kilogram of body weight ADI of aspartame from diet soda alone.[57]

Reviews have analyzed studies which have looked at the consumption of aspartame in countries worldwide, including the United States, countries in Europe and Australia, among others. These reviews have found that the even high levels of intake of aspartame, studied across multiple countries and different methods of measuring aspartame consumption, is well below the ADI for safe consumption of aspartame.[5][51][56][49] Reviews have also found that populations that are believed to be especially high consumers of aspartame such as children and diabetics are below the ADI for safe consumption, even considering very conservative worst-case scenario calculations of consumption.[49][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I gave up diet soda about a year ago, and don't miss it. I have had about 5 of them over the past year...and on at least 3 of those occasions, I remember not even wanting it - it was just the only thing around.

 

[bigdaddy]

Well, really, you should stop drinking soda in general.

No shit!

I mean really this is supposed to be surprising? And aspartame is horrible for you, the studies are bullshit and probably paid off the people doing them. It's a made man chemical that at the very least causes diarrhea, but I'm sure that's perfectly healthy.

Drink water and teas, probably solved.

 

[Avalon]

One drawback of the study is that participants were only asked about their soda habits at one time point; they could have changed over the study period, Gardener says. Also, there was no information on the types of soft drinks drunk, she says, pointing out that variations among brands, coloring, and sweeteners could have affected the results.

They were only asked about their soda consumption "at one time point" in a nine-year study? Does that mean they were only asked about it on their intake questionnaire? It certainly doesn't sound like it was a factor they paid any real attention to in any meaningful detail, especially since the researcher herself says there was no information on what diet sodas were actually consumed. Not exactly a basis for solid conclusions, there.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

And aspartame is horrible for you, the studies are bullshit and probably paid off the people doing them. It's a made man chemical that at the very least causes diarrhea, but I'm sure that's perfectly healthy.

The hundreds if not thousands of studies by over 100 international regulatory agencies and numerous independent testing facilities over the course of decades were all bribed to falsify their results? And no one was a whistleblower?

Pardon me if I weigh the extensive body of evidence higher than the ravings of some very unreliable guy on the internet going off on "man made chemicals" (or "made man chemicals," which I guess are made by mafia chemists) despite using and ingesting countless ones himself on a daily basis.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I switched to diet soda before getting off of it completely. The aspartame gave me awful headaches so I just ditched the whole thing. Soda's a fairly rare thing for me now. I don't miss it much, either.

 

[BlobVanDam]

In my life I've just accepted that everything kills you (well, everything good at least). And in many cases it's a matter of excess.
Either way, I don't drink a lot of soda, but I like it, so I'll keep drinking it. Regular or diet, I don't care. It all tastes good.

 

[Saga]

i use to drink a 12 pack of regular Coke a day. now, i'm down to three or four cans a day. i can't stop completely though, i get terrible terrible headaches.

 

[Jetfire]

I haven't drank regular Coke in a while...I usually drink Diet Dr Pepper or regular Canada Dry Ginger Ale. I love drinking Code Red Mt Dew...but haven't had that in a while either.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

What sounds more likely? Drinking diet soda creates a higher stroke risk? Or the people who feel the need to drink diet soda tend to have more strokes?

These are meaningless questions. "How likely" a relationship is has no bearing on what the relationship actually is. Only research will collect the evidence necessary to determine what is actually true, and the narrative plausibility of that truth is irrelevant.

 

[Brolan]

What sounds more likely? Drinking diet soda creates a higher stroke risk? Or the people who feel the need to drink diet soda tend to have more strokes?

These are meaningless questions. "How likely" a relationship is has no bearing on what the relationship actually is. Only research will collect the evidence necessary to determine what is actually true, and the narrative plausibility of that truth is irrelevant.

Not at all. Since the study itself is far from definitive, you have to determine whether or not to believe and act on the conclusions offered in the here and now, since it will be years before another study reveals that they were full of shit.

 

[Amaris]

See, this annoys me. As a diabetic, if I want a soda it has to be a diet soda. I don't do it to shed pounds to fit into my swimming trunks, I drink it because my options as a diabetic are limited, particularly with this recent upswing in "real sugar" soft drinks. Fortunately, having read up on this "study", I find the results unreliable. If this is to be done, it needs to be a double blind test with controls and everything, and done right.

 

[Canadave]

i use to drink a 12 pack of regular Coke a day. now, i'm down to three or four cans a day. i can't stop completely though, i get terrible terrible headaches.

... maybe you should try coffee?

 

[Goji]

See, this annoys me. As a diabetic, if I want a soda it has to be a diet soda. I don't do it to shed pounds to fit into my swimming trunks, I drink it because my options as a diabetic are limited, particularly with this recent upswing in "real sugar" soft drinks. Fortunately, having read up on this "study", I find the results unreliable. If this is to be done, it needs to be a double blind test with controls and everything, and done right.

My sister has been in the same situation since she was 8, and since she also has down syndrome (she is aware that sugar is harmful to her, she just doesn't give a crap) my whole family has had to switch over to diet sodas entirely too. I haven't had many in recent years, and since I'm on my own now I could ditch them if I wanted to.

But every week there's some report somewhere about something I like that wants to kill me. And I'm NOT going to spend the rest of my life eating broccoli and oatmeal. If I die of a stroke, I guess you'll all know it was the soda that got me. I expect that to be written prominently on my tombstone.