study on diet soda was junk science...
Posted by
Remlik (aka remlik)
Feb 23 '11, 14:47
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I drink between three and four Diet Cokes each day, and have enjoyed that for many years. But a study recently came out that says drinking diet soda increases the risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Do you think there's really anything to that? Would you suggest at least reducing my diet soda intake as a precaution?
A: The study to which you refer is junk science whose conclusion got a lot of national attention. Researchers at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine enrolled 2,564 adults over the age of 40 from north Manhattan by phone between 1993 and 2001. Half were Hispanic and one-fourth were African American. These are two groups who are known to have a higher risk of heart attack and stroke than the general population.
Their health status was tracked for nearly 10 years. The researchers found that the 163 folks who drank one or more diet sodas per day had a 61 percent higher risk of heart disease and stroke compared with the 901 participants who reported drinking no diet soda. Although they state that factors like smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and eating behaviors were taken into consideration, they failed to control for other important factors like a family history of heart disease/stroke, body mass index (i.e., obesity incidence), LDL cholesterol, triglyceride level, and diabetes.
Another troubling aspect of their conclusion was that they made a sweeping conclusion as though all diet sodas are the same. Diet sodas are sweetened by Equal, Splenda or saccharin. They're all chemically different and therefore cannot pose the same effect. Researchers went further to speculate that maybe caramel coloring was the culprit, causing some sort of vascular injury. But doesn't regular soda contain caramel coloring as well?
While this study received national attention, it proved absolutely nothing.
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