NIH study finds that diet soda drinkers are more likely to be down in the dumps than regular soda drinkers, and that coffee drinkers are happier than both. More research is needed to confirm the findings.
Posted on 01/10/2013 6:17:03 PM PST by null and void
Coffee tied to a decrease in depression cases
NIH study finds that diet soda drinkers are more likely to be down in the dumps than regular soda drinkers, and that coffee drinkers are happier than both. More research is needed to confirm the findings.
Millions of people reach for an afternoon diet soda as a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the day. But new research suggests sodas and other sugary drinks — especially artificially sweetened ones — could be related to depression.
According to the research, which will be officially released at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in mid-March, people who drink four cans or more of soda daily are about 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression than people who don't drink soda. Coffee drinkers are about 10 percent less likely to develop depression than people who don't drink coffee.
The National Institutes of Health study included more than 250,000 people between the ages of 50 and 71 and studied their drink consumption during 1995 and 1996. A decade later, researchers asked whether participants had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000.
According to researchers, "the risk appeared to be greater for people who drank diet [rather] than regular soda."
"Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk," Honglei Chen, who led the study, said in a statement. "More research is needed to confirm these findings, and people with depression should continue to take depression medications prescribed by their doctors.
Edm,
Yes, I know what a double blind test is and the reasons for having them very well. I commented that it really isn’t necessary for a double blind test to be done for aspartamine in your comment to null and void. A single blind would suffice if it is set up correctly. The adminstrator of the test does not necessarily unconciously communicate what they are giving.
Tests have to be double blinded because the person administering the treatment has expectations about its effectiveness, and telegraphs those expectations to the study subject without being aware that they are doing so. This is why, in reports on drug studies, a paragraph of the Materials and Methods section is devoted to describing the randomization method used. In an ideal study, no one knows which pill is which.
Even if null and void were to ask a friend to help him truly test the effects of aspartame without telling the friend why, the friend would still be curious and very likely would act differently on the days that he was giving n&v the aspartame capsules.
OOPS!!! SORRY!! I was thinking of another freeper
Double blind tests are necessary to meet the standard of scientific proof wherever the subject’s knowledge of the test can alter the results.
The aspartame-horrible symptoms connection is one of those cases.
That doesn’t mean the results are wrong, only that they don’t meet a particular set of standards to be fully accepted.
Like a correlation study, tens of thousands of anecdotal reports does not rise to the level of proof necessary to establish something as a scientific fact.
Compare to the hundreds of recent sightings of mountain lions (puma, if you prefer) in New England and Atlantic states. Despite numerous eye-witness accounts and a smattering of photographs, and despite the fact that these areas are known “former” range of, and can therefor support, these cats, State Fish & Game and federal agencies deny their existence.
They will continue to deny until either one of their own “discovers” them, or there is a dead body, either of a cat or a child taken by one.
In the mean while no hunter dares shoot one for fear of spending significant and very expensive court time defending themselves from charges of shooting an endangered species that officially doesn’t even exist!
No problem, it’s the curse of a gender-neutral screen name...
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