Horrifying – New Study Indicates That Popular Sugar Substitutes Worsen Your Memory

I never really drank any diet drinks at all.

 Horrifying – New Study Indicates That Popular Sugar Substitutes Worsen Your Memory

By University of Southern California October 25, 2022

Consuming low-calorie sweeteners also had an impact on the body’s 

metabolic signaling, which may result in diabetes and other metabolism-related diseases.

Using laboratory models, scientists discovered that ingesting FDA-approved levels of saccharin, ACE-K, and stevia early in life may result in many changes to the body, including brain areas linked to memory and reward-motivated behavior.

Early-life high-sugar diets have been linked to impaired brain function, but what about low-calorie sugar substitutes? According to recent research, they could have a negative impact on the developing gut and brain.

The News

Researchers from the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences report that adolescents who consumed the low-calorie sweeteners saccharin, ACE-K, and stevia showed long-term memory impairments in a study that was recently published in the journal JCI Insight.

• The results are consistent with other studies that demonstrated sustained memory impairment in adolescent rats who consume sugar.
• Consuming low-calorie sweeteners also affected metabolic signaling in the body, which can lead to diabetes and other metabolism-related diseases.
• Rats that ate low-calorie sweeteners as adolescents were less inclined to work for sugar as adults, but they ate more sugar if it was readily accessible, which is another factor that may influence the chance of developing metabolic disease.
  

  Diet soft drinks often use low-calorie sugar substitutes such as stevia and 

  acesulfame potassium, or Ace-K, which might have long-term effects on memory, 

  behavior and metabolic functions.

Why It Matters

There is a broad range of advice on what to eat and when to consume it. According to the researchers, information from studies like these may aid consumers and medical professionals in making better decisions at all stages of life.

“While our findings do not necessarily indicate that someone should not consume low-calorie sweeteners in general, they do highlight that habitual low-calorie sweetener consumption during early life may have unintended, long-lasting impacts,” said Scott Kanoski, associate professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife.

What It Means for Humans

While most studies of low-calorie sweeteners focus on one substance and use amounts far exceeding the norm, the researchers made sure the study was in line with real-life conditions for people.

• Sweeteners tested include saccharin, acesulfame potassium (ACE-K) and stevia — which are commonly used in sweetened foods.
• The amount of sweetener consumed fell within FDA-approved guidelines for humans.

In Their Words

“Research using rodent models and low-calorie sweeteners has typically involved consumption levels that far exceed the FDA ‘acceptable daily intake’ (ADI) levels and used only a single sweetener. To design our research to be more applicable to humans, we kept consumption levels within the ADI and used multiple low-calorie sweeteners to determine if effects were specific to a given sweetener or general across sweeteners.” — Lindsey Schier, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at USC Dornsife

The Experiment

To determine the effect of low-calorie sweetener consumption on memory, the researchers used methods that test object recognition and spatial recognition.

Rats were provided water sweetened with either stevia, ACE-K or saccharin or plain water, along with their normal food.
After a month, the rats’ memory was tested using two different methods — one tests if they remember an object they’ve seen before and the other is a maze.
In the end, rats consuming sweetener were less likely to remember an object or the path through the maze than those that drank only plain water.

What Else?

The scientists also found other effects among the rats after they consumed sweeteners.

• They had fewer receptors on their tongues that detect sweet taste.
• The biological mechanism in their intestines that transports glucose into the blood was altered.
• Their brains had changed, specifically in regions associated with memory control and reward-motivated behavior.

What’s Next?

Kanoski and Schier say the findings reveal more questions worth exploring, including:

• How do sweetener substitutes cause a reduction in sweet taste receptors and how does that affect later dietary behavior?
• What does the change in the nutrient transport in the gut mean for health?
• What biological mechanisms link sweetener consumption with the changes to the brain?

The researchers say they intend to explore ways to reverse the long-lasting effects of adolescent low-calorie sweetener consumption and to study how it influences food choices and preferences later in life.

Reference: “Early-life low-calorie sweetener consumption disrupts glucose regulation, sugar-motivated behavior, and memory function in rats” by Linda Tsan, Sandrine Chometton, Anna M.R. Hayes, Molly E. Klug, Yanning Zuo, Shan Sun, Lana Bridi, Rae Lan, Anthony A. Fodor, Emily E. Noble, Xia Yang, Scott E. Kanoski and Lindsey A. Schier, 13 September 2022, JCI Insight.
DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.157714

The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Insitute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the National Science Foundation.

Does drinking diet soda raise the risk of a stroke?

Conundrum time, confuse your doctor with questions about this.

 

Does drinking diet soda raise the risk of a stroke?

Posted July 31, 2017, 10:30 am

Julie Corliss, Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter

For diet soda fans, recent news reports linking these popular drinks to higher risk of stroke may have been alarming. A closer look at the study behind the headlines suggests there’s no need to panic. But beverages naturally low in calories are probably a healthier option than artificially sweetened drinks.
The study included 2,888 people ages 45 and older from the long-running Framingham Heart Study, all of whom filled out diet questionnaires up to three times over a seven-year period. People who said they drank at least one artificially sweetened soda a day were about twice as likely to have a stroke over the following decade when compared to those who drank less than one a week. Drinking regular, sugar-sweetened sodas or beverages did not appear to raise stroke risk.
However, these types of studies can’t prove cause and effect, only an association. Also, only 97 people (3%) had strokes during the follow-up, which means only two or three of those strokes could possibly be attributed to drinking diet soda, says Dr. Kathryn Rexrode, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital who co-authored an earlier, larger study looking at soda consumption and stroke risk.

Stroke risk from all sodas?

That study detected a slightly higher risk of stroke in people who drank more than one soda per day, regardless of whether it contained sugar or an artificial sweetener. Although the latest study didn’t detect a higher stroke risk from sugary beverages, that certainly doesn’t suggest they are a better choice than diet sodas. Many studies have already shown that drinking sugary beverages on a regular basis can lead to weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke, she notes.

Possible explanations

In fact, one possible explanation why sugary beverages weren’t linked to stroke in the recent study might be a phenomenon known as survival bias. In this case, that would mean that people who drank a lot of sugar-sweetened beverages may have died earlier from other illnesses such as heart disease.
Conversely, diet beverages may have shown a link to stroke because of a different issue, called reverse causation. In an attempt to be healthier, people who are overweight or have diabetes may be more likely to choose diet drinks over sugary ones. Their heightened stroke risk may result from their health problems rather than their beverage choice. “We might just be measuring the residual impact of obesity and diabetes,” says Dr. Rexrode.

Artificial sweeteners: Other shortcomings

Another conundrum: researchers don’t have any plausible explanation for why artificial sweeteners might increase stroke risk. Still, there may be other reasons to ditch them.
If you use artificial sweeteners to control your weight, you should know that the support for that strategy is pretty shaky. Some evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners make people crave sugary, high-calorie foods, thereby negating the sweetener’s potential to cut your overall calorie intake. And some experts believe that people who use these high-intensity sweeteners (which are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar) may come to find naturally sweet foods, such as fruit, less appealing and less-sweet foods, such as vegetables, downright unpalatable. If so, those people might be missing out on the many heart-protecting nutrients found in fresh, natural foods.
But Dr. Rexrode isn’t a stickler when it comes to diet soda. “I encourage my patients to eliminate regular soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks to avoid empty calories,” she says. “But if someone says they can’t do without a Coke in the morning to wake up, I’ll encourage them to switch to coffee or diet Coke.” Water is an even better choice, however. “There are a lot of ways to make it more appealing, both visually and taste-wise.” she adds. Try flavoring flat or sparkling water with a splash of fruit juice, or add frozen fruit, cucumber, or crushed mint.

Diet sodas, stroke and Alzheimers

In the news lately.

db's Medical Rants has a great takedown on this. 

Full post here:

http://www.medrants.com/archives/8700

Very interesting paragraph copied here:

Aaron Carroll - the Incidental Economist - has a great analysis - They did not prove that diet soda causes Alzheimer’s Disease. THEY DID NOT!

For a profane, but funny take - DIET COKE WON’T CAUSE STROKE, BUT READING SENSATIONALISTIC HEADLINES MIGHT

You are on your own here, no help from the medical profession. 

Sugar-Sweetened and Artificially Sweetened Beverages in Relation to Stroke and Dementia

Be careful out there.  Don't drink soda at all. 

Sugar-Sweetened and Artificially Sweetened Beverages in Relation to Stroke and Dementia

Are Soft Drinks Hard on the Brain?

Heike Wersching, Hannah Gardener, Ralph L. Sacco

Download PDF

https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.117.017198

Stroke. 2017;48:1129-1131

Originally published April 24, 2017

• Article
• Info & Metrics

• Editorials
• American Heart Association
• beverages
• diet
• hypertension
• stroke

See related article, p 1139.

Although the consumption of sodas has been decreasing in most Western countries during the past 2 decades, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are the leading sources of added sugars in the US diet and are increasing on a global level.^1–3 As measured by the recommendation of the 2015 World Health Organization Guideline on the intake of free sugars, a single can of sugar-sweetened soda contains about the upper limit of the recommended 25 to 50 g per day.⁴ Moreover, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association has defined 1 component of an ideal cardiovascular diet as consisting of ≤450 kcal/wk of SSBs. The harmful effects of regular SSB consumption, including weight gain, the metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus, have been demonstrated in numerous large observational studies.^5–9 Furthermore, a higher intake of SSBs has been repeatedly associated with increased risks of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and stroke, as well as with adverse changes in lipid levels and inflammatory markers.^10,11 A recent estimation based on nationally representative data calculated that >50 000 cardiometabolic deaths in US adults in 2012 can be attributed to high SSB consumption, making SSBs the leading factor associated with cardiometabolic mortality in young and middle-aged adults.¹²

Artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) are marketed as healthier alternatives to SSBs. Their consumption is rising in the United States, particularly among children.¹³ The American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association have given a cautious nod to the use of artificial sweeteners in place of sugar to combat obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes mellitus,^14,15 but there is still uncertainty about the benefits and even healthfulness of ASBs.¹⁶ Several large observational studies, including the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study,¹⁷ the Framingham Heart Study,¹⁸ and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis,¹⁹ reported a positive association between diet soda consumption and increased risks of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Results from the Northern Manhattan Study further indicated that diet soda consumption was associated with an increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and vascular death,²⁰ and a study based on combined data from the Nurses’ Health Study the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study reported higher incidence of hemorrhagic strokes in subjects with high regular low-calorie soda intake.²¹ Alternatively, other longitudinal studies have not confirmed the association between the intake of ASB and cardiovascular disease risk.^11,22

In this issue, Pase et al²³ contribute new data to this debate. Using prospective data from the Framingham Offspring Cohort, they analyzed the relationship between recent and long-term consumption of SSBs and ASBs and the risks of incident stroke and dementia. On the basis of participants who completed a validated food frequency questionnaire between 1998 and 2001 and additionally during at least 1 of the 2 previous examination cycles (1991–1995 and 1995–1998), the authors found that during a follow-up of 10 years, higher recent and cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke, all-cause dementia, and Alzheimer’s dementia. The effects persisted when analyses were adjusted for total caloric intake, diet quality, physical activity, and smoking status. However, the associations between recent and higher cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and dementia were no longer significant after additional adjustment for vascular risk factors and diabetes mellitus.

In the study by Pase et al,²³ the intake of SSBs was not associated with stroke or dementia. This finding could be attributed to selection bias, such that particularly vulnerable participants, that is, long-term SSB consumers with a very high cardiovascular risk died earlier. This could also explain the lower-risk profile of high SSB consumers compared with high ASB consumers the data of which were collected in 1998 to 2001. As already discussed, the results from previous studies of associations between SSB and stroke and the direct causal pathways linking SSB and vascular outcomes provide ample evidence to support World Health Organization and American Heart Association/American Stroke Association initiatives to reduce the consumption of SSBs.

The interpretation of the association between ASB consumption and vascular outcomes is more controversial. Is there a direct or indirect causal pathway or is there an association because of bias from reverse causation? As discussed in the works of Gardener et al²⁰ and Pase et al,²³ confounding by reverse causation cannot be ruled out in these observational studies. People at increased risk of vascular events because of preexisting vascular risk factors may switch from regular to diet soft drinks in an attempt to control weight and insulin resistance. It is entirely possible that the intake of ASB starts after the cardiovascular risk is increased and, therefore, is a marker of a high-risk profile rather than being a causal risk factor for stroke or dementia. The data presented by Pase et al²³ can be interpreted in favor of this hypothesis: compared with people with high intake of SSBs, participants regularly consuming ASB showed a higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease.

Whether the observed associations between ASBs and vascular outcomes reflect reverse causation bias is difficult to elucidate. In the epidemiological literature, adjustment for vascular risk factors has typically attenuated many of the effects of ASBs. This can be interpreted as either a reduction in bias because of confounding or blocking of potential indirect causal pathways through which ASB consumption may impact cerebrovascular health. ASB consumption may occur because of weight gain but could also exacerbate these conditions. Disentangling these effects and their temporality is challenging in epidemiological studies. Sensitivity analyses such as excluding high-risk subjects also attenuated effects in this study, but similar analyses have not resulted in the attenuation of effects in all studies. Sensitivity analyses in which the first several years of follow-up are excluded is also an option to help minimize bias caused by reverse causality, and such analyses have not eliminated the observed relationship between ASB consumption and diabetes mellitus.²⁴

From a biological perspective, there are no obvious pathways. Studies on the effects of ASB consumption on weight gain have yielded inconsistent results. There is some experimental work suggesting that artificial sweeteners may increase cravings for high glycemic and high-calorie foods, induce glucose intolerance, or impair caloric compensation, thereby increasing calorie intake and body weight.^25,26 Another proposed mechanism refers to advanced glycation end products, which are produced during the process of caramelization used in some ASBs and SSBs which might be proinflammatory and promote insulin resistance.¹⁸ Other hypothesized mechanisms linking ASB consumption with adverse vascular effects and insulin resistance include hormonal and microbiota effects,²⁵ and the phosphoric acid in diet soda has also been hypothesized to play a role in vascular outcomes.⁸ None of these hypotheses have been adequately proven calling for more experimental studies. In light of inconsistent evidence in the epidemiological literature, coherence with laboratory findings will provide important information to determine causality.

Nevertheless, both, the causal and bias hypotheses, are possible interpretations of these observational data, and further studies are needed. One possibility could be a cohort starting in childhood and following up through adolescence and adulthood thereby closely monitoring changes in nutrition and the development of (subclinical) vascular disease. Long-term prospective studies will help inform the temporality of vascular outcomes in relation to ASB consumption and the sensitive periods during the life course during which ASB consumption may have the greatest impact on brain and heart health. Another, less valid, but faster, option would be a retrospective collection of data on lifetime exposures on nutrition and associated health behaviors to facilitate the characterization and stratification of different exposure groups.²⁰ In future epidemiological studies, we recommend greater collection of data that may help answer these questions, including previous weight fluctuations, dieting behavior, changes in SSB/ASB consumption over time, and reasons for choosing ASB consumption.

The work by Pase et al²³ highly encourages further discussion and more research into this question, for even small causal effects would have tremendous effects on public health due to the popularity of both ASB and SSB consumption. The current body of literature is inconclusive about the causal nature of the associations between ASB consumption and risk of stroke, dementia, diabetes mellitus, and the metabolic syndrome. The growing number of epidemiological studies showing strong associations between frequent consumption of ASBs and vascular outcomes, however, suggests that it may not be reasonable to substitute or promote ASBs as healthier alternatives to SSBs. Both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks may be hard on the brain.

Study Links Diet Soda to Stroke, Dementia

How long before your hospital removes this from their soda machines? Or never since they don't read research and don't care to keep up-to-date. Other research back at least 5 years had the same conclusion. So if your hospital still has diet drinks they are appallingly incompetent.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/64681?

But can't determine causality; some associations diminished with adjustments

• by Alexandria Bachert
  Staff Writer, MedPage Today April 20, 2017

Action Points

• Note that this observational study found an association between artificially-sweetened beverage intake and stroke and dementia, even after accounting for total caloric intake.
• This does not necessarily imply causality, however, as multiple other confounders may be present.

Higher consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with an increased risk of both stroke and dementia in an analysis of more than 4,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort, researchers found.
In the observational study, those who drank at least one artificially-sweetened beverage a day were nearly three times more likely to develop ischemic stroke (HR 2.96, 95% CI 1.26–6.97) and 2.9 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease (95% CI 1.18–7.07) over 10 years than those who abstained, Matthew Pase, PhD, of Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues reported in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.
However, sugary beverages weren't tied to an increased risk of stroke or dementia -- a finding the authors called "intriguing," and one that could have been due to survival bias.
"It is possible that individuals with high intakes of sugary beverages may have died earlier from other illnesses such as heart disease," Pase told MedPage Today. "It is also worth noting that our sample consumed diet soda more frequently than sugar-sweetened soda and this may contribute to differences in findings between regular and diet soda."
He cautioned that the association between artificially sweetened drinks and stroke and dementia seen in their study does not imply causation -- a point emphasized by Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, who wasn't involved in the study.
"Association is not the same as causation, although the survival curves are impressive," Nestle said. "I wish the authors had offered a plausible hypothesis for how artificial sweeteners could be causally related to stroke and dementia."
Several other experts commented on the "controversial but inconclusive" nature of the association.
"The relationship with artificially sweetened beverages was not simple or straightforward," said Keith Fargo, PhD, of the Alzheimer's Association. "When the researchers controlled for other risk factors, particularly cardiovascular risk factors, it explained most of the association between artificially sweetened beverage intake and the development of dementia. This kind of data does not allow us to say that drinking [these] beverages causes dementia, or that cutting down on artificially sweetened beverages will reduce a person's risk for dementia."
Pase and colleagues analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort on people over age 45 years for the stroke arm (N=2,888) and people over age 60 years for the dementia arm (N=1,484). Both groups were primarily Caucasian and were just under 50% male.
Beverage intake was quantified using the Harvard semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire at three points: cohort examinations five (1991–1995), six (1995–1998), and seven (1998–2001). Participants were then followed for more than 10 years to determine development of stroke or dementia.
Notably, data collection did not distinguish between the types of artificial sweeteners used in the beverages.
Pase and colleagues found that higher recent and cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks was linked to an increased risk of ischemic stroke, all-cause dementia, and Alzheimer's dementia -- even after adjustment for total caloric intake, diet quality, physical activity, and smoking status.
However, the associations between recent and higher cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and dementia were no longer significant after additional adjustment for vascular risk factors and diabetes mellitus.
"Because our study was observational, we are unable to determine whether artificially sweetened soft drink intake increased the risk of incident dementia through diabetes mellitus or whether people with diabetes mellitus were simply more likely to consume diet beverages," Pase said.
Pase noted the findings complement their sister study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, that found higher consumption of both sugary and diet beverages was associated with smaller brain volumes, a marker of accelerated brain aging.
Also using data from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort, this study found that people who more frequently consumed sugary beverages, including sodas and fruit juices, were more likely to have poorer memory, smaller overall brain volumes, and smaller hippocampal volumes.
The researchers concluded that their studies highlight a need for more research into this area, especially given how often people drink artificially-sweetened beverages.
In an accompanying editorial in Stroke, Ralph Sacco, MD, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, agreed, writing that the findings "encourage further discussion and more research into this question, for even small causal effects would have tremendous effects on public health due to the popularity of both artificially sweetened soft drinks and sugar sweetened soft drinks consumption. Both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks may be hard on the brain."
"This kind of research is critical for examining and uncovering public health relationships that may eventually lead to actionable recommendations," added Fargo.
Rachel Johnson, PhD, MPH, RD, past chair of the American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee and professor at the University of Vermont, suggested that people stick to water, low-fat milk, or other beverages without added sweeteners until more data are available: "We know that limiting added sugars is an important strategy to support good nutrition and healthy body weights, and until we know more, people should use artificially sweetened drinks cautiously," she said in a statement.
The researchers acknowledged several study limitations, including the observational nature of the data, the absence of ethnic minorities, and the use of a self-reported questionnaire to obtain dietary intake data, which may be subject to recall bias.
"Even if someone is three times as likely to develop stroke or dementia," Pase said, "it is by no means a certain fate."

Pase reported funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The Framingham Heart Study is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and by grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Sacco received a National Institutes of Health grant for the Northern Manhattan Study. Gardener is also funded by the National Institutes of Health for her work on the Northern Manhattan Study.

• Reviewed by F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE Assistant Professor, Section of Nephrology, Yale School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner

• Primary Source

  Stroke

  Source Reference: Pase M, et al "Sugar and artificially sweetened beverages and the risks of incident stroke and dementia a prospective cohort study" Stroke 2017; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.116.016027.

• Secondary Source

  Stroke

  Source Reference: Wersching H, et al "Sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages in relation to stroke and dementia are soft drinks hard on the brain?" Stroke 2017; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.117.017198.

Diet drink consumption and the risk of cardiovascular events: a report from the Women's Health Initiative

Another risk factor for stroke. Take care.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25515135

Vyas A¹, Rubenstein L, Robinson J, Seguin RA, Vitolins MZ, Kazlauskaite R, Shikany JM, Johnson KC, Snetselaar L, Wallace R.

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Data are limited regarding the influence of diet drink consumption on cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes.

OBJECTIVE:

We aimed to evaluate the relationship between diet drink intake and cardiovascular events.

DESIGN:

We conducted a retrospective cohort study, utilizing data from the national, multicenter Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI OS), recruiting subjects from 1993 to 1998.

PATIENTS:

Post-menopausal women with available diet drink intake data, without pre-existing CVD and who survived ≥ 60 days were included in the study.

MAIN MEAURES:

A composite of incident coronary heart disease, heart failure, myocardial infarction, coronary revascularization procedure, ischemic stroke, peripheral arterial disease and CVD death was used as the primary outcome. CVD death and all-cause mortality were secondary outcomes. Adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to compare primary and secondary outcomes across diet drink intake strata.

KEY RESULTS:

In all, 59,614 women, mean age 62.8 years, were included for analysis. In unadjusted analysis over a follow-up of 8.7 ± 2.7 years, the primary outcome occurred in 8.5 % of the women consuming ≥ 2 diet drinks/day, compared to 6.9 %, 6.8 % and 7.2 % in the 5-7/week, 1-4/week and 0-3/month groups, respectively. After controlling for other CVD risk factors, women who consumed ≥ 2 drinks/day had a higher adjusted risk of CVD events (HR 1.3, 95 % CI 1.1-1.5), CVD mortality (HR 1.5, 95 % CI 1.03-2.3) and overall mortality (HR 1.3, 95 % CI 1.04-1.5) compared to the reference group (0-3 drinks/month).

CONCLUSIONS:

This analysis demonstrates an association between high diet drink intake and CVD outcomes and mortality in post-menopausal women in the WHI OS.

Comment in

• Capsule commentary on Vyas et al., Diet drink consumption and the risk of cardiovascular events: a report from the Women's Health Initiative. [J Gen Intern Med. 2015]

PMID:

25515135

[PubMed - in process]

PMCID:

PMC4371001

[Available on 2016-04-01]

Diet Soda vs. Regular Soda: Is One Worse For You Than The Other?

Good luck. I try not to drink either very much.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/diet-soda-vs-regular-soda-one-worse-you-other-308063

Diet soda linked to faulty scientific studies

Ok maybe the previous post was not valid.
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.3367/news_detail.asp

Though soda has received much flak for its high sugar content and alleged adverse health effects, a new study is targeting diet soda too, claiming that consuming too much can lead to vascular events.

Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center collected data on soda-drinking habits from over 2,500 participants in a multi-ethnic urban population. After ten years of follow-up, the study results showed that those who drank diet soda daily had a 43 percent increased risk of suffering a vascular event, including stroke, heart attack, or vascular death. Meanwhile, those who drank diet soda moderately (six times a week or less), or stuck to regular soft drinks did not exhibit any increased risk of vascular events.

However, while the researchers accounted for participants’ pre-existing risk factors for vascular conditions, such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and high blood pressure, they missed the most important factor: obesity, which of course, puts people at significant risk for vascular disease. “This study,” says Dr. Manne, “looks on the face of it to be so badly designed that it should not be credited at all. ‘Multi-ethnic’ is one problem, as is the absence of any indication that the diet-soda drinkers were not prone, for some other reason than those mentioned, to vascular events.”

ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom adds that “This is not at all the first poorly conducted study on diet soda. Last year, for instance, a study tied the consumption of diet soda to diabetes. Except they didn’t control for the weight of the subjects. Once this factor was applied, the correlation went away. The latest study appears to be more of the same.”

Heart Danger in Diet Drinks

I went to the abstract of the article itself and didn't get the same impression. So if the full article says that I'd be surprised.
Article abstract here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/600075863470145h/
Sensational article here:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/299327#comments
One can of diet fizzy drink a day can dramatically increase the risk of a stroke or heart attack, a study has revealed.
correction here:
http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2012/02/diet-soda-linked-to-faulty-scientific.html