Diet Coke and Stroke.....it rhymes and that may be the only link?

[LongTomH]

There have been a few posts on DU about an alleged link between diet drinks and an increased danger of stroke, like this one. This article is obviously a dissenting opinion: Diet Coke Won't Cause Stroke But Reading Sensationalistic Headlines Might:

A new study closely controlled several groups of identical twins with identical diets, identical body weights, identical exercise regimens, identical lives and stress levels, and had one of them drink diet soda and the other not. Then it followed them for many years to determine that diet soda fucks you in the grey matter.

I’ll take “THINGS THAT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED” for $800, Alex.

...............//snip

Using dietary recall—asking people to remember what they consumed—is terribly flawed and therefore difficult to draw any conclusions from. The “implausible results” Dr. Freedhoff mentions are that the study compared people who drank diet soda with those who drank sugar-sweetened soda. Those who drank regular soda with sugar in it reported a daily caloric intake that was significantly higher than that of the diet soda drinkers (Comparing the two highest consuming groups, reported caloric intake in sugary soda drinkers was 20% higher than in diet soda drinkers.) That part makes sense. What makes no sense is that Body Mass Index in the sugary soda drinking group was significantly lower than the diet soda group (27 vs. 29 BMI). File that one under “Things that make you say ‘Dafuq?’”

“The problem with people weighing less when they report to consume more calories is that it calls into question the validity of the data when you have a very implausible result,” said Dr. Freedhoff.

No shit.

He mentioned how dietary recall is frequently problematic in terms of obesity management. “There are studies of people with obesity who say they’re consuming only 1,800 calories a day, but clearly that’s not what they’re eating given the weight of the individual.”

I found the link for this on the Facebook page for the beautiful, sexy, brilliant and outspoken SciBabe. SciBabe was one of the speakers at Kansas City's March for Science yesterday. Mrrrowww!!!! If I was only 30 years younger and with an advanced degree!!!!

[Beakybird]

1. Diet sodas are bad for many other reasons

The fizz causes tooth decay, like all fizzy drinks. Diet sodas are associated with the same risks of obesity and diabetes as regular soda. When you're tongue tastes sugar, your body starts craving the sugar that the tongue signals is coming. The people who drink diet soda add other cheap carbohydrates to their diet to compensate for the sugar the body is expecting from the diet soda.

However, thanks for pointing out the weak science behind this latest paper.