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Diet Sodas May Be Tied To Stroke, Dementia Risk (cnn.com)
Gulping down an artificially sweetened beverage not only may be associated with health risks for your body, but also possibly your brain, a new study suggests. From a report: Artificially sweetened drinks, such as diet sodas, were tied to a higher risk of stroke and dementia in the study, which published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke on Thursday. The study sheds light only on an association, as the researchers were unable to determine an actual cause-and-effect relationship between sipping artificially sweetened drinks and an increased risk for stroke and dementia. Therefore, some experts caution that the findings should be interpreted carefully. No connection was found between those health risks and other sugary beverages, such as sugar-sweetened sodas, fruit juice and fruit drinks.
the researchers were unable to determine an actual cause-and-effect relationship between sipping artificially sweetened drinks and an increased risk for stroke and dementia
In other words, the headline is worthless click-bait. This is not a "study", it's a statistical analysis of a database set that proves nothing at all by itself.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's bad enough having to wade through all of the uneducated mouthbreathers and their "HEALTH GOODNESS WELLNESS NOW!!11" anti-science garbage sites.
Do we really need to see more garbage science on /.?
If you want to know the risks of aspartame (spoiler alert: there are none unless you've been diagnosed with phenylketonuria), consult legitimate scientific bodies, like the NHS or Health Canada.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
"They also found that those who drank one a day were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with dementia."
"Those who drank one to six artificially sweetened beverages a week were 2.6 times as likely to experience an ischemic stroke but were no more likely to develop dementia"
So if you drink six a week, there's no change to risk of dementia, but somehow the seventh triples your risk?
"We studied 2888 participants aged >45 years for incident stroke (mean age 62 [SD, 9] years; 45% men) and 1484 participants aged >60 years for incident dementia (mean age 69 [SD, 6] years; 46% men). Beverage intake was quantified using a food-frequency questionnaire at cohort examinations 5 (1991–1995), 6 (1995–1998), and 7 (1998–2001). We quantified recent consumption at examination 7 and cumulative consumption by averaging across examinations. Surveillance for incident events commenced at examination 7 and continued for 10 years. We observed 97 cases of incident stroke (82 ischemic) and 81 cases of incident dementia (63 consistent with Alzheimer’s disease)."
Not a lot of people and with questionaires you get such accurate data.
"the hazard ratios were 2.96 (95% confidence interval, 1.26–6.97) for ischemic stroke and 2.89 (95% confide"nce interval, 1.18–7.07)"
the error bars are huge and the value is close to a ratio of 1.
So nothing to see here.
This reeks of being sponsored by the sugar industry. Those bastards paid Harvard researches in the 1960's to leave out sugar's being a cause of obesity and to shift the blame to fat. The result is a diabetes "epidemic", likely fueled by excessive sugar consumption taxing the pancreas until it no longer controls insulin levels properly. Any "study' like this should be suspect. How can an artificial sweetener that is not absorbed by the body, like sucralose, have any physical effect, unless the brain hates being tricked and is getting even.
Not exactly. Also slim people drink diet sodas, to stay slim. Best way to avoid this, is to drink - water.
So you're saying it was done so they can beg for funds to do the "real" study.
You can manipulate statistics to show a link between just about any pair of variables. Massage this. Try a dozen different formulas to calculate significance. And tada! You have the link you were digging for.
The article I read about this study this morning stated: "But after accounting for all lifestyle factors, the researchers found the link to dementia was statistically insignificant." Despite their best efforts, I'm sure. Yet the clickbait headline and lead still blare out "dementia!!"
Has anybody looked at who FUNDED this "study"?... could it have been https://www.sugar.org/ ???
For example, people have been trying to demonize Aspertame for YEARS.
But the American Cancer Society finds no ill effects https://www.cancer.org/cancer/...
There are other examples if you search.
it's drunk by fat people.
You're going to need some real data to back that up. All the 'normal' sized people I know who drink soda drink diet soda.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
So don't drink more than 24 cans of Diet Coke a day (125mg) or 52 cans of Diet Mountain Dew (57mg).
Good to know
Letter To Iran
But, the "normal" person today, is pretty much obese as compared to someone as recent as maybe 20 years ago or so....
But heaven forbid you say that to people....you cannot "fat shame" people, and everyone is to feel good about themselves.
Hence, overweight is now the accepted new normal.
While that might help peoples' self image, it won't ever help their physical health.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's not even that. This is just another "study" by somebody with an agenda against sweeteners.
There's no data, no evidence, just a guy manipulating numbers with excel until he finds a result he likes.
No sig today...
This story is probably relevant to /. because I've known many coders who suck down sugar soda or Aspartame soda like no tomorrow. Having followed the dementia research I put it to ya'll that a nice hot cup of tea most probably the best way to a slake thirst and keep those neurons chugging away. A bit of cream or sugar is just fine. There is a growing body of evidence correlating Alzheimers/Dementia to diabetes and metabolic imbalance and our choice of drinks is likely to be a contributing factor. Plus it is so civilized.
The dementia lead to drinking diet soda, not the other way around.
Actually, they also found a correlation between strokes and diabetes, plus they found a correlation between diabetes and artificial sweetener consumption.
So, most likely, it goes like this: people eat too much carbs, they develop diabetes, and the diabetes causes stroke. At the same time, their doctor tells them they are diabetic, and should switch to diet soda.
Did you even read the study before criticizing it? My guess is no. The study does take into account "waist/hip ratio", which is similar for the sugar soda and diet soda groups, among other parameters.
But lots of people do live in California, including a lot of Asians, a lot of obese people, and a lot of people who follow shitty Hollywood-style "cleanse" fads.
He referred to slim people with his generalization.
You referred to Asians with yours.
His was less inaccurate.
facepalm
That's not how science works. A lot of studies do turn out to be false, but that's not because some guy is fudging numbers. It does happen sometimes, but it's a serious allegation, and for you to simply dismiss a peer reviewed study without evidence puts you in the anti-science crowd.
Soda pop is poison. You don't need a study to prove that. There are only four safe drinks in this world. Water, milk, orange juice, and beer. Wait, there are only five safe drinks in this world. Water, milk, orange juice, wine and beer.
You forgot butter. There's nothing like a nice hot mug of butter to start your day.
Consuming as much as single packet of aspartame gives me a splitting headache. I tested pretty extensively (on myself) several years ago when I was in my mid-20s, and re-confirm my finding when I (rarely) inadvertently consume some. I was (and am) in pretty good health and physically fit, with no known relevant health issues. (Although similar quantities of thujone result in scintillating scotoma for me.)
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
Indeed. There's a lot of skepticism here. When you factor in confounding factors:
The study appears to be an excellent example of the reverse causality effect. For example, let's say I was doing a study on on the effects of taking a heart medication on heart attacks. So I randomly collect thousands of people and study their incidence of heart attacks, and compare which people who had heart attacks were taking a heart medication and which weren't. Lo and behold, the people taking heart medication are far more likely to have a heart attack! Does that mean the medication is to blame? Not at all; it means that the people who are on heart medication are already more likely to be taking heart medication. It's the risk of a heart attack that's causing the taking of heart medication, not the heart medication that's causing the risk of heart attack.
Very well; let this abomination unto the Lord begin!
I drank (past tense) diet soda often. I wasn't fat. Still am not. I'd read correlative evidence of dementia as well as insulin resistance so I gave up. Coffee (unsweetened) is way better.
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it's drunk by fat people.
You're going to need some real data to back that up. All the 'normal' sized people I know who drink soda drink diet soda.
My anecdotal response to your anecdote is that I mainly see obese people drinking diet soda... along with entire pizzas, supersized fries, etc.
I agree that someone who is drinking pizza has gone too far.