4 ms·

I had a coworker who insisted diet sodas were worse for you than regular sodas. I just don't understand how people reach that kind of conclusion.

close04 8y ago
I guess it's because other scientists and studies say low-calorie sweeteners can lead to weight gain or increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and in lab experiments aspartame exposure lead to increased lymphoma and leukemia. It's not that obvious which study is right and which maybe had a flawed methodology, or which is the result of correlation rather than causation. A random example that does not definitively settle anything but is enough to make you keep asking the question [0]. And one common sense argument is that many people consume way more diet sodas than they would regular ones. Since they have no sugar and almost no calories the assumption is that there is no danger to consume more of them, they are "healthy". Since artificial sweeteners have their own sets of risks in mechanisms that are perhaps even less understood, suddenly this assumption is that more dangerous. It could be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2008.284 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2008.28...
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Right! Good point! The study should not be per-person risk, but per-bottle risk to answer that question. How much more does one can of diet Pepsi put your health at risk than the regular kind? Its the question we must answer when faced with the soda cooler at the gas station. But the study gives a different, not-very-actionable per-average-person-lifetime answer.
  - close04 8y ago
    No study at this time has quantified the risk of sugary vs. diet sodas. They just point out that each one increases the risk of specific medical problems but with no certain indication of which one is worse or by how much. And even deciding what worse means is a big deal. They can simply kill you or decrease your quality of life in different ways. Doesn't make one better. It's the same recently with cigarettes and e-cigs. Determining smoking or drinking coke is bad compared to not doing it is relatively straight forward. Determining what's better out of 2 alternatives that just harm you in different ways and that weren't studied enough is harder. If you want to play it safe go for none of them.
- magduf 8y ago
  And on top of that, it's not like you need to drink some kind of soda, and have to worry about whether sugar, HFCS, or artificial sweeteners are worse. You can avoid the problem altogether by simply not drinking soda!
  - close04 8y ago
    > it's not like you need to drink some kind of soda Sugar is pretty addictive so for many people the need is very real. And you can see this from the worldwide sales of sodas.
    - magduf 8y ago
      Um, no, that's not a "need", that's just an addiction. You don't need to feed an addiction and maintain it. Instead, a better alternative is to break the addiction.
francisofascii 8y ago
I believe the sugar industry was successful in creating the perception that artificial sweeteners can cause cancer. One of the first, sodium cyclamate, was in fact, banned.

close04 8y ago

I guess it's because other scientists and studies say low-calorie sweeteners can lead to weight gain or increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and in lab experiments aspartame exposure lead to increased lymphoma and leukemia. It's not that obvious which study is right and which maybe had a flawed methodology, or which is the result of correlation rather than causation. A random example that does not definitively settle anything but is enough to make you keep asking the question [0]. And one common sense argument is that many people consume way more diet sodas than they would regular ones. Since they have no sugar and almost no calories the assumption is that there is no danger to consume more of them, they are "healthy". Since artificial sweeteners have their own sets of risks in mechanisms that are perhaps even less understood, suddenly this assumption is that more dangerous. It could be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2008.284 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2008.28...

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Right! Good point! The study should not be per-person risk, but per-bottle risk to answer that question. How much more does one can of diet Pepsi put your health at risk than the regular kind? Its the question we must answer when faced with the soda cooler at the gas station. But the study gives a different, not-very-actionable per-average-person-lifetime answer.
- close04 8y ago
  No study at this time has quantified the risk of sugary vs. diet sodas. They just point out that each one increases the risk of specific medical problems but with no certain indication of which one is worse or by how much. And even deciding what worse means is a big deal. They can simply kill you or decrease your quality of life in different ways. Doesn't make one better. It's the same recently with cigarettes and e-cigs. Determining smoking or drinking coke is bad compared to not doing it is relatively straight forward. Determining what's better out of 2 alternatives that just harm you in different ways and that weren't studied enough is harder. If you want to play it safe go for none of them.
magduf 8y ago
And on top of that, it's not like you need to drink some kind of soda, and have to worry about whether sugar, HFCS, or artificial sweeteners are worse. You can avoid the problem altogether by simply not drinking soda!
- close04 8y ago
  > it's not like you need to drink some kind of soda Sugar is pretty addictive so for many people the need is very real. And you can see this from the worldwide sales of sodas.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Um, no, that's not a "need", that's just an addiction. You don't need to feed an addiction and maintain it. Instead, a better alternative is to break the addiction.

francisofascii 8y ago

I believe the sugar industry was successful in creating the perception that artificial sweeteners can cause cancer. One of the first, sodium cyclamate, was in fact, banned.