Diet soda
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I use to be 260 pounds heavier. When I began my new way of eating many friends and family were telling me that I needed to stop drinking diet soda. That it somehow was playing "tricks" on my mind. They seemed more concerned about me drinking a zero calorie beverage than what I was eating!
So, when I saw a registered and licensed dietitian and nutritionist I made sure to ask him about it. I was told that all of the available science has not shown diet soda/artificial sweeteners to have any negative affects and that they are actually helpful in weight loss.
And it has been helpful! I have lost over 260 pounds and am in the best shape of my life. All while drinking at least 3 diet sodas a day and using artificial sweeteners (and eating gluten, not worrying about "clean" eating, etc.).
Now, I know I am just one person and one person's personal experience doesn't hold much weight. But the scientific process does - look to the experts and avoid people who think they know better.17 -
I know I am just one person and one person's personal experience doesn't hold much weight.
You know what else doesn't hold much weight anymore...you
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »I know I am just one person and one person's personal experience doesn't hold much weight.
You know what else doesn't hold much weight anymore...you
Haha! Thanks, made me smile
It has been a long road and I am reveling in all the comments I'm getting! 4 -
run2brazil wrote: »Ok so weight loss aside, we can all agree that excessive diet soda drinking is bad for your health? I'm wondering if anyone has tips to help her kick the habit.
Severity: I've run half marathons with her and she seeks out diet soda at the finish line instead of water.
I guess I don't see an issue with that. I tend to seek out the beer tent afterwards, but that's me.
Last marathon I ran I had 2 or 3 beers in the last two miles, that's what the frat kids were handing out, it was 85 degrees and the beer was cold... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯6 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I know I am just one person and one person's personal experience doesn't hold much weight.
You know what else doesn't hold much weight anymore...you
LOL, I had to read it 6 times to determine that it was a compliment.... I must be in a bad mood...Well played.2 -
stanmann571 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »I know I am just one person and one person's personal experience doesn't hold much weight.
You know what else doesn't hold much weight anymore...you
LOL, I had to read it 6 times to determine that it was a compliment.... I must be in a bad mood...Well played.
It wasn't just you... I had my hand on the red button, but had to hold back.
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run2brazil wrote: »Ok so weight loss aside, we can all agree that excessive diet soda drinking is bad for your health? I'm wondering if anyone has tips to help her kick the habit.
Severity: I've run half marathons with her and she seeks out diet soda at the finish line instead of water.
I guess I don't see an issue with that. I tend to seek out the beer tent afterwards, but that's me.
Last marathon I ran I had 2 or 3 beers in the last two miles, that's what the frat kids were handing out, it was 85 degrees and the beer was cold... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I ran a marathon at the beginning of the month and at the end, the first thing I looked for was the beer area for my free beer. It tasted great!1 -
I kicked soda to the curb by imagining it was no different than antifreeze. Just think of all the chemicals that are in it. Heck, I heard they put dead babies in pepsi. Yeah, I said it. Imagine drinking dead babies....or dead rats, whatever will give you nightmares.
Side note: chillax ya'll I know they don't put dead babies in soda....or antifreeze....or rats. But I do hope everyone has nightmares. *evil laugh*
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JillianRumrill wrote: »I kicked soda to the curb by imagining it was no different than antifreeze. Just think of all the chemicals that are in it. Heck, I heard they put dead babies in pepsi. Yeah, I said it. Imagine drinking dead babies....or dead rats, whatever will give you nightmares.
Side note: chillax ya'll I know they don't put dead babies in soda....or antifreeze....or rats. But I do hope everyone has nightmares. *evil laugh*
Again, @JillianRumrill, keep reading...2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »KirbySmith46 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »KirbySmith46 wrote: »run2brazil wrote: »In conclusion, there are scientific studies going all directions about soda...
No, actually, there aren't. There are a lot of studies that are misreported. The misreporting states that diet soda is harmful - when the actual studies don't state that at all.
So you can say with 100% confidence, you’ve seen every study ever done on the use of “soda” and furthermore that every single one of those studies showed no negative consequences???? Serious question?
The responsibility to produce evidence lies on those making a claim not those skeptical of said claim. If my friend claims that there are unicorns it is their responsibility to provide evidence for their claim, not my responsibility to answer whether or not I've looked everywhere in the universe and can say with 100% confidence that their are no unicorns.
I personally have seen no studies that show harm in humans upon consumption of sodas. That doesn't mean I'm going to say 100% I've seen every study ever because that would be a ridiculous claim to make. That said I've seen reviews published on the current literature for artificial sweetners and can say with confidence that there is no evidence seen thusfar that they cause harm. I say that as a active scientist who knows how to look at the literature and who is part of a lab that actively carries out toxicology studies so I know what I am reading when I read it. So if you have seen such a study then please present the study.
What kind of scientist? It’s actually irrelevant to the discussion either way. I asked a simple question...
My current work involves testing compounds for efficacy but also for toxicity in various models including immortalized human cell lines and mice. Have a working knowledge of concepts related to ADME/PK
I'm asking this in complete seriousness...from what I've read in these forums, testing chemicals, compounds, drugs etc on mice is irrelevant because the dosage is much higher than in a human due to size ratio. I've posted studies where chemicals get tested on mice and I'm told it's irrelevant due to this very reason. Can you explain why it's relevant in some senerios (like your work), but not in others?
It isn't irrelevant to being able to understand what these assays are or what they mean when you read a scientific study which is why I brought it up. I have a working knowledge of those assays so when I read a scientific paper that references a rat study that performed bid p.o. dosing I know what that means.
As to why we would use mice to test safety for a novel compound we hope to develop into a drug its for this reason:
If you don't know the in vivo safety of a compound it would be unethical to do your first in vivo testing in humans. Mice are not equivalent to humans but they are cheap and ethically speaking considered by most to be more reasonable to test on than humans. Side-effects from dosing in mice can be informative and can give information about off target effects that can be further investigated. If an issue is identified that cannot be surmounted by modification of the molecule and that issue is potentially going to be a problem in humans as well (hepatic toxicity) then unless you have evidence that it will be safe in humans a human trial is not going to be approved. That does not mean that toxicity in mice is 100% equivalent to toxicity in humans, but if toxicity is identified and there does not seem to be a way of solving that issue nor any reasoning behind why it would only be toxic in mice then it would be unethical to take the gamble of doing a human trial.
That said the way mice and humans metabolize molecules is very different especially with regards to cytochrome p450s. So of course if a human trial or human testing has been done then those results are absolutely going to trump the results of any mouse or rat study.
Another test is to test toxicity against immortalized human liver cells (HepG2 cell line) to see if the compound kills or prevents the growth of those cells. This is considered to be an in vitro experiment however as it is not in a living organism. A compound showing toxicity against HepG2 cells can be a warning sign for potential hepatotoxicity and is a flag to continue to monitor that but it isn't a 1 to 1 correlation that HepG2 toxicity equates to in vivo toxicity.
In drug development we run these assays as a way of modeling or gauging potential problems and of course would favour compounds that do not have these flags along the way.
As for aspartame there have been zero studies in any animal that show that aspartame is toxic in vivo at all so to those who make that claim actually that is just a false statement. Not only that but it very much has been tested in humans both through repeated controlled scientific studies and for the fact it has been on the market as a product for over 50 years now. It isn't toxic.
Makes sense....most of it anyway. I admit some of the specialized scientific lingo etc is a little beyond me, but I definitely get the gist of it. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I appreciate it.0 -
JillianRumrill wrote: »I kicked soda to the curb by imagining it was no different than antifreeze. Just think of all the chemicals that are in it. Heck, I heard they put dead babies in pepsi. Yeah, I said it. Imagine drinking dead babies....or dead rats, whatever will give you nightmares.
Side note: chillax ya'll I know they don't put dead babies in soda....or antifreeze....or rats. But I do hope everyone has nightmares. *evil laugh*
So you deliberately made yourself afraid of something that is not harmful? Makes sense.8 -
Sorry, but this is her life NOT yours. If she likes her diet soda so be it. It is not what hinders weight loss. While I agree it's not the healthiest thing to put in your body...it's certainly not the worst. Lighten up and let her make her own choices.3
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KirbySmith46 wrote: »run2brazil wrote: »In conclusion, there are scientific studies going all directions about soda...
No, actually, there aren't. There are a lot of studies that are misreported. The misreporting states that diet soda is harmful - when the actual studies don't state that at all.
So you can say with 100% confidence, you’ve seen every study ever done on the use of “soda” and furthermore that every single one of those studies showed no negative consequences???? Serious question?
Every single one? No. Off the top of my head, I'd say probably somewhere about 20 or so. And the handful that I've seen used as "evidence" of harm? Either state the opposite (that artificial sweeteners are safe for human consumption) or make no statement in either way, although the data suggests that they are not harmful.
Now, my turn for a serious question: why are you so hell-bent on white-knighting this?
Oh, I know one that said they're bad. The one where they fed rats that get cancer from being looked at the wrong way an ungodly amount for their entire adult life that is laughed out of the house when mentioned among scientists (apparently).
Oh and ironically, the rat group that got an amount of aspartame that was more in line with normal intakes got less cancer than the group that got none at all but that doesn't even get mentioned in the "study", lol.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »KirbySmith46 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »KirbySmith46 wrote: »run2brazil wrote: »In conclusion, there are scientific studies going all directions about soda...
No, actually, there aren't. There are a lot of studies that are misreported. The misreporting states that diet soda is harmful - when the actual studies don't state that at all.
So you can say with 100% confidence, you’ve seen every study ever done on the use of “soda” and furthermore that every single one of those studies showed no negative consequences???? Serious question?
The responsibility to produce evidence lies on those making a claim not those skeptical of said claim. If my friend claims that there are unicorns it is their responsibility to provide evidence for their claim, not my responsibility to answer whether or not I've looked everywhere in the universe and can say with 100% confidence that their are no unicorns.
I personally have seen no studies that show harm in humans upon consumption of sodas. That doesn't mean I'm going to say 100% I've seen every study ever because that would be a ridiculous claim to make. That said I've seen reviews published on the current literature for artificial sweetners and can say with confidence that there is no evidence seen thusfar that they cause harm. I say that as a active scientist who knows how to look at the literature and who is part of a lab that actively carries out toxicology studies so I know what I am reading when I read it. So if you have seen such a study then please present the study.
What kind of scientist? It’s actually irrelevant to the discussion either way. I asked a simple question...
My current work involves testing compounds for efficacy but also for toxicity in various models including immortalized human cell lines and mice. Have a working knowledge of concepts related to ADME/PK
I'm asking this in complete seriousness...from what I've read in these forums, testing chemicals, compounds, drugs etc on mice is irrelevant because the dosage is much higher than in a human due to size ratio. I've posted studies where chemicals get tested on mice and I'm told it's irrelevant due to this very reason. Can you explain why it's relevant in some senerios (like your work), but not in others?
It isn't irrelevant to being able to understand what these assays are or what they mean when you read a scientific study which is why I brought it up. I have a working knowledge of those assays so when I read a scientific paper that references a rat study that performed bid p.o. dosing I know what that means.
As to why we would use mice to test safety for a novel compound we hope to develop into a drug its for this reason:
If you don't know the in vivo safety of a compound it would be unethical to do your first in vivo testing in humans. Mice are not equivalent to humans but they are cheap and ethically speaking considered by most to be more reasonable to test on than humans. Side-effects from dosing in mice can be informative and can give information about off target effects that can be further investigated. If an issue is identified that cannot be surmounted by modification of the molecule and that issue is potentially going to be a problem in humans as well (hepatic toxicity) then unless you have evidence that it will be safe in humans a human trial is not going to be approved. That does not mean that toxicity in mice is 100% equivalent to toxicity in humans, but if toxicity is identified and there does not seem to be a way of solving that issue nor any reasoning behind why it would only be toxic in mice then it would be unethical to take the gamble of doing a human trial.
That said the way mice and humans metabolize molecules is very different especially with regards to cytochrome p450s. So of course if a human trial or human testing has been done then those results are absolutely going to trump the results of any mouse or rat study.
Another test is to test toxicity against immortalized human liver cells (HepG2 cell line) to see if the compound kills or prevents the growth of those cells. This is considered to be an in vitro experiment however as it is not in a living organism. A compound showing toxicity against HepG2 cells can be a warning sign for potential hepatotoxicity and is a flag to continue to monitor that but it isn't a 1 to 1 correlation that HepG2 toxicity equates to in vivo toxicity.
In drug development we run these assays as a way of modeling or gauging potential problems and of course would favour compounds that do not have these flags along the way.
As for aspartame there have been zero studies in any animal that show that aspartame is toxic in vivo at all so to those who make that claim actually that is just a false statement. Not only that but it very much has been tested in humans both through repeated controlled scientific studies and for the fact it has been on the market as a product for over 50 years now. It isn't toxic.
Makes sense....most of it anyway. I admit some of the specialized scientific lingo etc is a little beyond me, but I definitely get the gist of it. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I appreciate it.
No problem, sorry if I used jargon that was confusing either in this post or others. Just to put it out there in case it is helpful:
in vitro is latin for "in glass" and basically refers to experiments conducted on a bench and not in a living organism (mutlicellular life). Testing compounds on cells in a plate would be considered in vitro even though the cells are technically alive they aren't really an organism.
in vivo is latin for "in life" and basically refers to experiments conducted with whole living organisms (generally multicellular life, experiments with single-cell eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells are often considered in vitro
b.i.d is abbreviation of the latin bis in die which just means "twice a day". So b.i.d. dosing is a dose given twice per day.
p.o. is abbreviation of the latin per os which just means "by way of the opening" and is used to refer to doses given orally.
So for example an experiment that tested a drug given twice a day to rats by inclusion in their water or food would be an in vivo b.i.d. p.o. experiment either for the purpose of efficacy (effectiveness) or to determine maximum tolerated dose (toxicity).9 -
Long story short if you want to determine if a brand new compound or drug might be toxic to humans it is generally recommended to first test in vitro against a cell line then test in vivo in a model organism such as rats or mice. Any flags that come up from those experiments will need to be explained or dealt with before applying for a phase 1 clinical trial humans (safety trial).
If, however, you have something that has been demonstrated to be safe when administered to humans and then one study somewhere shows under certain conditions in a particular circumstance with a particular breed of rat that there might be some indication of carcinogenicity or toxicity then that doesn't really mean all that much to be honest. It could be interesting, it would definitely be worth repeating by another group to see if the results are reproducible and if they are it might be worth following up to see what the difference between that species is that under those conditions there is some liability. But regardless it doesn't somehow invalidate the human safety experiments or the 50+ years of actual use by the public.
The one study I've seen refereed to with regards to aspartame is the Soffiriti paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1392232/) whereby they tested a very large dose of aspartame daily for life to a small population of Sprague Dawley rats, some of which developed cancer in the form of large tumors. The claim was that the formation of these tumors was significant in the aspartame dosed rats relative to control. The experiment, in my opinion, did not really demonstrate significance and said claimed significant result has yet to be shown again in repeat.
There were also numerous other issues with that study detailed by a published rebuttle to the conclusions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430246/
One of the biggest problems with the study honestly isn't really to do with the study it is to do with the public lack of understanding. Sprague Dawley rats are often used in cancer studies specifically because that outbred species of rat naturally develops tumours. About 45% of Sprague Dawley rats develop cancer, whether you give them aspartame or not. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/33/11/2768.full.pdf. What percent of rats developed tumors when given the highest dose of 5 g/kg/day aspartame in the Sofritti study? 43%.
How much is 5g/kg/day? Well if you weigh 80kg that would be 400 grams of aspartame per day. How much aspartame is in a can of diet coke? 0.125 grams. So how many cokes is that? That would be 3,200 cans of coke per day every day for your life. That is how much they dosed them at.
The issue is people don't read the study, they don't really comprehend it or they don't think what it means. They read a story on a website somewhere that says aspartame causes cancer in rats, and claims this one study as a source, and they just take it as true.15 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »...One of the biggest problems with the study honestly isn't really to do with the study it is to do with the public lack of understanding. Sprague Dawley rats are often used in cancer studies specifically because that outbred species of rat naturally develops tumours. About 45% of Sprague Dawley rats develop cancer, whether you give them aspartame or not. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/33/11/2768.full.pdf. What percent of rats developed tumors when given the highest dose of 5 g/kg/day aspartame? 43%.
Clearly a very disingenuous study, designed to elicit a specific outcome rather than make an objective determination. Seems like it's a classic case of "If the facts do not conform to the theory, the facts must be disposed of".
Thanks again for your input, Aaron. Always enjoy reading your posts and I've learned a lot from them.4 -
Thank you Aaron for explaining the abbreviations/Latin and further about the rat types. I do find it interesting and helpful.0
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Which got me wondering. How much do we have in common with a mouse, a rat, or a pig? A lot.
http://www.businessinsider.com/comparing-genetic-similarity-between-humans-and-other-things-2016-5/#for-humans-were-999-similar-to-the-person-sitting-next-to-us-the-rest-of-those-genes-tell-us-everything-from-our-eye-color-to-if-were-predisposed-to-certain-diseases-1 (apes to bananas)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/05/03/2887206.htm (pig)
https://www.genome.gov/11511308/2004-release-scientists-compare-rat-genome/ (rat)0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »One of the biggest problems with the study honestly isn't really to do with the study it is to do with the public lack of understanding. Sprague Dawley rats are often used in cancer studies specifically because that outbred species of rat naturally develops tumours. About 45% of Sprague Dawley rats develop cancer, whether you give them aspartame or not. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/33/11/2768.full.pdf. What percent of rats developed tumors when given the highest dose of 5 g/kg/day aspartame? 43%.
BREAKING: Aspartame reduces cancer risk!!!5 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »One of the biggest problems with the study honestly isn't really to do with the study it is to do with the public lack of understanding. Sprague Dawley rats are often used in cancer studies specifically because that outbred species of rat naturally develops tumours. About 45% of Sprague Dawley rats develop cancer, whether you give them aspartame or not. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/33/11/2768.full.pdf. What percent of rats developed tumors when given the highest dose of 5 g/kg/day aspartame? 43%.
BREAKING: Aspartame reduces cancer risk!!!
*shouts it from the rooftop*1
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