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.

Comments

Huh? What?

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:Huh? What?

[networkBoy]

Which sweetener was tested?

IIRC aspartame was initially developed to be a drug for alzheimer's... but it was noticed that it tasted sweet, so it was marketed as an artificial sweetener.
which... Kinda lends credence to this story.

What about sucralose?
Or Sodium saccharin?

-nB

Re:Huh? What?

[sinij]

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/882/

Re:Huh? What?

[Ol Olsoc]

It suggests a link. It will take further study to determine whether there is actual causation or whether other factors may be involved.

It's almost like you don't know how science works.

Agreed, but I'm even skeptical about the entire study. Remember - we live in an age where cane sugar is considered healthy. Micro, non angry rant follows.

What is remarkable about this study is that apparently every single artificial sweetener has exactly the same association with stroke and dementia.

This is truly groundbreaking, because different artificial sweeteners have wildly different compositions.

Stevia, aspartame, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, and advantame, Cyclamates, allulose, monk fruit, Sorbitol and xylitol. All artificial, and every single one is associated with stroke and dementia. I left out lead acetate because not many people think that is safe at all - although in the anti science age, perhaps the deniers want to try it.

Back to the study, and lest I be accused of being sarcastic, the researchers are very, very clear about this. To wit:

After adjustments for age, sex, education (for analysis of dementia), caloric intake, diet quality, physical activity, and smoking, higher recent and higher cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks were associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke, all-cause dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease dementia. When comparing daily cumulative intake to 0 per week (reference), the hazard ratios were 2.96 (95% confidence interval, 1.26–6.97) for ischemic stroke and 2.89 (95% confidence interval, 1.18–7.07) for Alzheimer’s disease. Sugar-sweetened beverages were not associated with stroke or dementia.

There is no distinction between the different types of artificial sweeteners, therefore they tested all of them. And sugar sweetened beverages ha no association. Which apparently means both sucrose and corn syrup.

This sounds like a study where we might want to look into the money path, because the abstract is so remarkably bad that it is difficult to put much credence into any of it, and the skeptic in me finds some groups with a financial interest in the "results" might have a profit motive.

Re:Something doesn't sound right...

[dslauson]

So if you drink six a week, there's no change to risk of dementia, but somehow the seventh triples your risk?

These are two distinct groups:

• group A drinks less than one a day.
• group B drinks more than one a day.

Crossing from group A into group B doesn't magically triple your risk, but group B, collectively, has a much higher risk.

Because group B does not have a cap, (7 to infinity sodas), it's intuitive that the collective risk jumps dramatically. That group includes people who are drinking a fucking ridiculous amount of diet soda.

Re:Oops

[NatasRevol]

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.

Tea is the Solution

[Yergle143]

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.

Re:Oops

[Khashishi]

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.