I agree with leethebard, Cajun King, and Twinwillow.   Every once in a while, these anti-diet soda articles pop up in places like “Prevention Magazine” which is the periodical that is used as the source in the article at the top of this thread .    What you will NOT find is one single conclusive double-blind study in a real medical journal such as JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine), or Lancet that shows harmful effects of diet sodas.  Not one.  Prevention Magazine and other well-intentioned “magazines” like Prevention are NOT medical journals, and as with leethebard’s doctor, they drive my doctors nuts, as well, with the misinformation that is spread by magazines such as Prevention.

 

You have to laugh at statements in the Prevention Magazine article such as,   “middle aged men who drank 1 or more diet sodas per day were much more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes over a 7-year period.” 

    Well, of course.  That’s because people who are already over-weight are more likely to be the consumers of diet beverages in an attempt to lose weight.   What the article doesn’t state is that these people might be even more overweight if they drank regular soda.  Again, the double blind study is missing, and is replaced with single level observation, rather than a true double-blind, controlled study.     

 

Along these lines of thinking, I bet you’d also find that people who go to Weight Watchers are more likely to be overweight than those who don’t go to Weight Watchers.  If  “Prevention” used the same logic that they apply to diet soda, they would conclude that Weight Watchers must have caused these people to be overweight! … All the while ignoring the fact that the people who go to Weight Watchers are much more likely to already be overweight.  

 

 

Glenn