Your thoughts on Diet Soda

[thebasil]

Repped for the truth

damn straight

[BullGod]

Forget the aspartame argument...for me it is the fact that diet soda adds to the ph load of your body....Your blood must maintain a ph level of 7.3. Diet soda and soda in general are very acidic. Your body has to buffer that somehow...it draws minerals from your bones. Numerous diseases(cancer for one) thrive in an acidic state. I try to avoid it as much as posible drinking iced green tea...but still give in every once in a while....but keeping it to rare occasions....

[Dr. Horse]

that's pubmed.gov .oh I guess that settles it!

I guess you missed the part about the tinfoil hat?

has anybody criticaly looked into these pub med articles ?

#2, #3 and #6 were associated with Nutrasweet company so they should be discarded

Why not take your own advice? Oh yeah, it's easier to dismiss it based on the funding source than actually look at it. If we followed your protocol, we wouldn't have most of the research that exists in the world. Someone has a stake in just about any research topic...

[reefpicker]

has anybody criticaly looked into these pub med articles ?

In that same thread where Mr. Horse posted that, I think I replied and I looked at each of them.

I think it was something like half of them where from the Nutrasweet Foundation or w/e the name. I then found this Dr from a very prestigious institute in Pittsburgh or Philly, who was interviewed by NPR and she had my same exact opinion. But yeah, look at the post where I explained it all...

If you can't find it, I will help you...

Basically, as anything in medicine or health, the truth lies in some gray area...

One thing is for sure, drinking aspartame in small amounts seems NOT to be a problem. I know I do

As was suggested before, soda is not the healthiest thing to drink. I drink it, so I can't talk but its really not the best thing....

As far as the aspartame controversy, the problem is the lack of long term studies on healthy individuals who consume large amounts of the stuff. Thats where there is a lack of good evidence.

If you are interested, I strongly suggest you follow that thread in which Mr. Horse and myself and some other ppl had a very interesting discussion about it...

[Elfie.]

I guess you missed the part about the tinfoil hat?



Why not take your own advice? Oh yeah, it's easier to dismiss it based on the funding source than actually look at it. If we followed your protocol, we wouldn't have most of the research that exists in the world. Someone has a stake in just about any research topic...

Especially a company that could lose billions if their product was proven harmful.

[Dr. Horse]

Especially a company that could lose billions if their product was proven harmful.

Uh, what?

[reefpicker]

Why not take your own advice? Oh yeah, it's easier to dismiss it based on the funding source than actually look at it. If we followed your protocol, we wouldn't have most of the research that exists in the world. Someone has a stake in just about any research topic...

Mr. Horse,

While you and I more often than not seem to see things in the same light, this is an area that I strongly disagree. Funding sources are important, and I can attest to scientist "framing" the conclusion so as to please a funding agency. I can't imagine a scientist going against the funding agency to say that the product is bad. This same issue has been discussed in the context of supplements, and it seems to hold true for them as well.

I think that it is not that those studies should be discarded, but just that those conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. This is also true for studies that show that nutrasweet is bad, and which are funded by the Sugar Institute (or w/e the name is now I forgot!).

There are a couple of things that you should quickly look at in a paper to gauge its merit: funding agency vs. conclusion, title of paper vs. conclusion (too pompous or maybe its misleading), and also authors country vs. journal's country (the fictional Dr. House has mentioned this in at least one episode where he ask a physician if he published in an obscure journal on purpose)....

Now, I for one think that NIH and NSF are great funding agencies, and I admit some of the papers you posted where NIH or NSF funded. So you are more than welcome to make a strong case with those!!!