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  #1   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 09:20
howlovely howlovely is offline
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Default Diet soda increases diabetes risk by 60%

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...l#axzz2Jszo9E9Q

I have suspected this for years, that diet drinks are just as bad for you as regular. The sweet taste alone is enough to stimulate an insulin response. Please let this waken people up to the calorie myth.
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  #2   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 09:23
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Repeat 10 times: Correlation does not equal causation.

People who are getting fat shift to diet drinks but don't otherwise change their behavior end up getting T2. Did the diet drinks cause it? We don't have the evidence to make that determination.

People who buy plus sizes also get more diabetes. Does that mean that plus size clothing causes diabetes?
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  #3   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 09:27
howlovely howlovely is offline
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The reading and research I have done would lead me to believe that artificial sweeteners are just as damaging as real sweeteners. In fact I think they are more damaging, because when someone drink a diet soda, they do not "count" it as part of their calories or sugars. As a consequence that person might feel comfortable eating more sugar in a different form throughout the day.

BTW, neither I nor the article said that diet soda causes diabetes, so I do not understand the lecture about correlation and causation. The conclusion is that there is a 60% increase in diabetes among those who drink diet soda. That is a big deal to me, as it shows the likelihood that artificial sweeteners screw with your insulin, a leading cause of health problems that result in obesity and diabetes. Previous studies have shown that people who drink diet sodas weigh the same as people who drink regular sodas. Now, because diet sodas are "calorie free," many people have concluded that it must be that diet soda drinkers merely consume more calories because they feel they can "make up" for it with diet soda. I am not totally discounting that theory, but to me the simplest explanation may very well be the most likely in this scenario: diet sodas cause the same insulin response as regular sodas.

Last edited by howlovely : Fri, Feb-08-13 at 10:05.
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  #4   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 18:59
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by howlovely
In fact I think they are more damaging, because when someone drink a diet soda, they do not "count" it as part of their calories or sugars. As a consequence that person might feel comfortable eating more sugar in a different form throughout the day.



I think we are all familiar with the "I'll have a slice of cheesecake and a Tab" syndrome in delis across the nation.
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  #5   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 19:11
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Rosebud Rosebud is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by howlovely
<snip>

I have suspected this for years, that diet drinks are just as bad for you as regular. The sweet taste alone is enough to stimulate an insulin response. Please let this waken people up to the calorie myth.

Yet these studies say otherwise.
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  #6   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 19:48
rwwff rwwff is offline
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Quote:
The conclusion is that there is a 60% increase in diabetes among those who drink diet soda.


That only tells you about who is drinking diet soda; it doesn't tell you anything about what diet soda does or does not do to the individuals. It could just as easily be that if those individuals drinking diet soda stopped (and consequently shifted to sugared sodas or juices, which they most certainly would); their risk of diabetes would go to 90%.
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  #7   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 19:55
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LilyB LilyB is offline
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WTF is a "full fat" soda?
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  #8   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 20:00
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CarolynC CarolynC is offline
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Biochemical reactions in the human body are very specific. A generalized sweet taste does not stimulate insulin production from the beta cells of the pancreas. Instead, the specific molecule glucose triggers insulin production when a membrane protein known as glucose transporter moves glucose into the beta cells. The attachment of glucose to the transporter molecules is a lock-and-key type of process that only works for glucose. So, if an artificial sweetener were to stimulate insulin production, it would first need to raise blood glucose levels. However, this is unlikely because the molecular structures of artificial sweeteners don't resemble that of glucose. The only exception is sucralose (Splenda), which is a trichlorinated form of sucrose and even there I doubt that the human body is capable to converting sucralose to glucose.

I've been a type 2 diabetic for almost 20 years and I've taken thousands of readings of my blood sugar. I've never seen any evidence that artificial sweeteners or stevia cause my blood glucose level to rise. (The exception is some sugar alcohols, although most of those aren't technically even "artificial.") If blood glucose doesn't rise, then there's no reason that insulin levels should rise--as is supported by the studies that Rosebud linked to.

The Mail Online article did not specifically state that correlation equates to a causal relationship, but in my opinion the article certainly tried to imply it. I have not read the actual work published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" but I hope that the researchers didn't argue for such a relationship.
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  #9   ^
Old Fri, Feb-08-13, 20:00
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Rosebud Rosebud is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LilyB
WTF is a "full fat" soda?

Excellent point. They can't get their idea of fat as the "bad guy" out of their tiny heads. One day...
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  #10   ^
Old Sat, Feb-09-13, 08:45
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costello22 costello22 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy LC
Repeat 10 times: Correlation does not equal causation.

People who are getting fat shift to diet drinks but don't otherwise change their behavior end up getting T2. Did the diet drinks cause it? We don't have the evidence to make that determination.

People who buy plus sizes also get more diabetes. Does that mean that plus size clothing causes diabetes?


That was my first thought too. I have a fat friend who insists on drinking regular Pepsi. When I asked her why she didn't drink diet, she said, "It doesn't work. People who drink diet pop are all fat."
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  #11   ^
Old Sat, Feb-09-13, 12:07
Merralea Merralea is offline
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The trouble with observational studies (as opposed to clinical studies) is how easily obvious confounding variables are swept aside.
If you're fat, you likely drink/eat more "diet" things. If you're fat, you're more likely to get diabetes. Simple as that.
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  #12   ^
Old Sat, Feb-09-13, 12:23
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Quote:
BTW, neither I nor the article said that diet soda causes diabetes

...
Quote:
Diet soda increases diabetes risk by 60%

Right there... your posting heading says it. It doesn't say they're linked, it says diet soda increases diabetes. How is that not drawing the causative arrow?

Then...

Quote:
I have suspected this for years, that diet drinks are just as bad for you as regular. The sweet taste alone is enough to stimulate an insulin response. Please let this waken people up to the calorie myth.

You agree with the causation, apparently. The sweet taste alone causing some sort of big insulin spike is the myth.

We secrete insulin for all kinds of reasons: Smelling something delicious, seeing a food advertisement on TV. Those sorts of insulin releases are very small and just get the body ready for bigger ones. But if there is an insulin release in the presence of non-caloric sweetness, and I've seen studies that say it doesn't happen, they're very small. Otherwise we'd be driven to immediately go eat something because what does insulin do? It makes us hungry.

I've used diet soda to postpone eating, so I doubt it has much of an insulin effect, if any.

Now, granted, I wish they'd stop using aspartame, but I hate painting all horses the same color.

Last edited by Nancy LC : Sat, Feb-09-13 at 12:30.
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  #13   ^
Old Mon, Feb-11-13, 04:52
gonwtwindo's Avatar
gonwtwindo gonwtwindo is offline
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People who have weight problems drink diet soda. People who are naturally thin don't.

Weight problems = weight gain over time, diet sodas or not...and eventually the diabetes gene is triggered.

It's circular...people with the genetics for metabolic syndrome (including diabetes) have a strong tendency toward overweight...and the more overwieght you are, the more insulin resistant you get...leading to flipping the diabetic metabolic switch.

Drinking diet soda doesn't create this. It is merely a coping mechanism of the overweight to drink the stuff.

As an added bonus...when your cells are insulin resistant, they don't get a normal amount of energy to use (energy = glucose) so they send hunger signals to the brain. At the same time, the glucose that should have gone into the cells, but can't due to insulin resistance, is now stored as fat. And the more body fat you have, the more insulin resistant you are. So you're hungrier. So you eat more. And your cells get less energy. So you feel hungrier. And so on and so on...So circular. ANd the desperadoes take to drinking diet soda to help stop this, or so they think...

And diet soda has nothing to do with it. It's correlation only. Just like how buying plus sizes does not make you become diabetic.

Last edited by gonwtwindo : Mon, Feb-11-13 at 20:07.
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  #14   ^
Old Mon, Feb-11-13, 18:18
mike_d's Avatar
mike_d mike_d is offline
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The take home message:
Quote:
"The paper noted previous research which had showed that aspartame - the most wisely used artificial sweetener - has a similar effect on blood glucose and insulin levels as the sucrose used in regular sweeteners."
I can't swallow that argument though, especially after they used the term "full-fat" for soda?
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  #15   ^
Old Mon, Feb-11-13, 18:23
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keith v keith v is offline
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I've heard that teenage girls that smoke are moer likely to get pregnant, so if I get my daughter to stop smoking she won't get pregnant right?

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