livescience.com: "Drinking diet soda is associated with 50% increase in stroke risk"

[MN TN]

click link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110228/sc_livescience/thebittersideofdietsodastrokes

This is "according to a study presented earlier this month at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles."

This study is not yet conclusive since they don't know for sure what the ingredient is or whether it is related to life style choices but:
"That said, is drinking diet soda safe? Of course not, especially when it is the main source of liquid refreshment every day"

I realized that it wasn't healthy because of the way I always felt afterwards so stopped
drinking it years ago.

[DainBramaged]

1. Supposition and inconclusive........and I am not a soda drinker

Meh, meh and meh

[MN TN]

2. Then you don't know how it makes you feel.

I stopped drinking it for a few months, then tried it briefly and felt really strange.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. omg. Guess I should cut down on the diet coke

[Modern_Matthew]

4. Never smoke. Rarely drink. Gotta have one posion, at least.

Time to crack open a Diet Mountain Dew.

[valerief]

5. I haven't drunk diet soda in decades, but would diet soda sweetened with stevia be strokey? nt

[madinmaryland]

6. Why would anyone drink a diet (chemically poisoned) soda is beyond me.

The stuff tastes like SHIT and causes cancer. I don't drink regular soda, either, as it contains HFCS.

[RB TexLa]

11. Guess we must just be stupid. The way you put it, that could be the only answer.

[madinmaryland]

12. You like the way the stuff tastes??

[RB TexLa]

17. Yes, I do.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Damn good thing I drink beer

Which has been around since the dawn of human civilization.

[madinmaryland]

13. Yeap! Even Budweiser's multiple piss-water brews taste better than

ANY diet soda!

[customerserviceguy]

16. Well, that's going a bit far

I guess I should say that I'm glad to be a craft brew drinker!

[WatsonT]

8. Drink the real stuff

infrequently.

[markpkessinger]

15. Yeah, that was my strategy, too, until...

I was diagnosed with diabetes last November. I was a hard core Classic Coca-Cola drinker (never cared for Pepsi -- too sweet). Diet Coke is a pretty lousy substitute taste-wise, so I've now settled on Coke Zero, which seems to have less of a chemical aftertaste. So the real stuff will kill me, and now so will the fake stuff. Natural juices drive the glucose up just as much as sugared soda, so basically if I were really strict with myself, I wouldn't drink much more than water, and maybe a little coffee or tea. I try to be very careful about what I eat (with particular attention to the number of grams of carbs per meal and per day, how much, and on what schedule, and as a result I've been able to keep my numbers fairly well in line (with the help of insulin). But the one thing a disease like diabetes teaches you is that, while it's good to take sensible steps to avert certain known risks, something is gonna get you sooner or later, and you can never entirely avoid risks. So, after making what I think are reasonable and sensible steps to protect my health, at a certain point I decide that there are some risks worth living with.

When I first began meeting with a dietician following my diabetes diagnosis, she interviewed me extensively about my eating habits. I had already been diagnosed about a month earlier when I first met with her, so I had already made quite a number of changes. But in our interview, we came around to the subject of what I typically eat for breakfast. I told her that I alternate between oatmeal, yogurt and berries, and eggs. "How do you cook your eggs?", she asked me. "I typically fry them, over easy." "Well," she said, "you could use Canola or olive oil." "Yes, I know I could. But I won't. If you take real butter out of the equation, you have taken most of the pleasure out of eating them!" She didn't argue with me. ;)

[WatsonT]

20. Yep, a good healthy diet is a great thing

but there is also quality of life.

If my doctor told me I could definitely add another two years to my life by eating only plain oatmeal, tofu, and water I would say no thanks.

Moderation is the key. We're all going to die some day, and as far as I know we only get one shot at this. Need to maximize the duration without minimizing the enjoyment.

[tilsammans]

9. Cancer in a can . . .

. . . and now stroke too. I'm not surprised.

[RB TexLa]

10. Then I'll have a stroke. You have to go out some way.

[Silver Swan]

14. I've been drinking diet soda for fifty years

When does is my stroke supposed to happen?

[MN TN]

18. I thought diet pop has only been around for 30 years - since the 1980s

Anyway its only 50% increase. No guarantees you will have a stroke.

[WinkyDink]

21. I don't know about "diet pop," but diet SODA (heh) has been around since the 60's.

Tab was introduced as a diet drink in 1963.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(soft_drink)
Drank it all the time.

[Rosie1223]

19. Can't blame HFCS

for a change.

[speltwon]

22. Not this silly study AGAIN (it was posted here several days ago)

Unless they accounted for the fact that different cohorts tend to drink diet soda (which they didn't) the study is meaningless... filed under correlation =/= causation