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.
Yup, just water and bubbles and a hint of natural flavor.
I actually like the plain seltzer a lot.
i used to chug Coke, mountain Dew, Lipton Iced tea etc..
but now all that Caffeine sugar, corn syrup etc just makes me feel wicked nervous for hours.
The seltzer is good.......Beer too.
I hate to say it, but that really isn’t a scientific test. Aspartame has a specific taste. How do you know that you aren’t becoming depressed because you expect to become depressed whenever you taste that particular flavor?
In order to establish a real effect, you would have to consume aspartame in a form where you really cannot taste it, and you would have to have a placebo control. The aspartame and sugar pills would be randomized, so that someone other than you knows which is which, and the results would need to be recorded each day when you take one of the random pills. Only after you have consumed enough pills for the effects following consumption to be analyzed statistically, would you be able to scientifically determine if aspartame has an effect on you.
This would be similar to a double blind study often used for drug studies. It is a well established fact that people will experience certain effects if they expect them to occur. Double blind studies are supposed to control for that effect.
I like the taste of Splenda over aspartame. Aspartame breaks down when subjected to heat, and doesn’t taste very good that way. And for some reason, I prefer real sugar in coffee.
To me aspartame tastes just like sugar. I cannot recognize it as distinct from sugar, corn sweetener, or acesulfame K or most of the -ols in any product. I can discern sucralose, saccharine and xylitol, but even those in formulations for beverages confections and medicines can be difficult to discern, well, I can always pick out saccharine...
I can tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke, (Pepsi has cinnamon and clove notes) but I can’t taste the difference between Splenda Coke and Equal Coke, or between a novel diet beverage I’ve been told and believe was sweetened with Splenda and one that wasn’t.
Maybe I am getting some subtle clue I’m not consciously aware of, but the results are very consistent even if I think I’ve succeeded in avoiding aspartame.
Not sure how I could do a double blind test, but I have done a half-blind test.
Your link is available by subscription only. This study is not listed in Pubmed, and the USA Today article seems to be discussing a conference presentation.
As I explained in post 43, this kind of study is the worst kind of “research” possible. I’ve read hundreds of these correlational studies, and my annoyance with them never decreases. Correlation is not causation, yet these studies are used to “prove” all kinds of things, or, worse, used to “prove” a pre-conceived bias.
a person who forgot to buy half/half the previous night.
The worst possible?
I don't think so. It's very subject to misuse, but spotting correlations is useful, even when there is no causation, as it can point to underlying relationships and root causes.
Finding corrections is a good starting point for investigation, the real problem, as you pointed out, is that the studies are presented to the public as the be all and end all of Conclusive Science.
I am not a subscriber. Apparently I bypassed the paywall by clicking on a Google search result. That works surprisingly often.
Try a Google search (quotes included) for:
"A few earlier studies reported that coffee consumption was associated with fewer suicides,"
It might help to delete cookies before doing the search.
Sorry to hear about that.
Wish that were not the case for those who need those medications.
I get severe headaches within minutes if I drink/eat/chew anything that has this junk.
I have had problems when jerks at a fast food decided I needed diet Coke instead of what I ordered. One sip and I was back at the counter ripping them a new one about people that can NOT have aspartame.
I also hate that most gums that are NOT labeled sugar free now have aspartame. Found that out the hard way when I couldn’t figure out way I had such bad headaches, then I looked at the pack - had been chewing the brand for years and they changed with no warning. Literally had bought the old formula about two weeks before I bought the new.
gives me a headache
In a double blind test, the substances would be placed inside of identical capsules, so that you wouldn’t be able to tell by sight, smell, or taste what was inside. I suppose little serial numbers could be printed on the capsules, and whoever prepared them would have a list of which numbers correspond to which contents. Another person, not the one who prepared the capsules, would record the serial number and then give you the capsule. Then you would document your reactions. You would repeat this process every day (or every other day) for a long enough period of time to get statistically meaningful data.
I have no trouble telling the difference between sweeteners. Saccharine has an unpleasant bitter taste. Equal and Splenda have subtle differences that are difficult to explain, but I’ll use Equal if Splenda isn’t available. My main problem with Equal is that aspartame is unstable at high temperatures, so it is not a good sweetener for tea, as it loses the sweetness and takes on an unpleasant taste. Sodas sweetened with Equal will lose sweetness over time, and eventually not be sweet. I think you may be picking up on the taste of the Equal breakdown products (the free amino acids and trace of methanol), even if you are not consciously aware of doing so.
I don't think so. It's very subject to misuse, but spotting correlations is useful, even when there is no causation, as it can point to underlying relationships and root causes.
Finding corrections is a good starting point for investigation, the real problem, as you pointed out, is that the studies are presented to the public as the be all and end all of Conclusive Science.
These studies wouldn't be so bad if they were used, as you point out, as starting points for investigations. But I have seen far too many of them trumpeted as newsworthy "proof" of something, and published as if they are the end result. I can't even begin to count the number of such studies I've seen where conclusions that are not supported by any data are made on the basis of a correlation. It's bad science. This is particularly prevalent in medical training (MDs, nurses), because their training does not cover proper hypothesis formulation and testing, yet they are expected to do a minimal amount of research in many fellowship programs. Although properly trained physicians can be perfectly good researchers, I have seen a *lot* of bad research done by physicians.
Thousands of people believe that drinking sodas causes obesity, because it is popular to publish correlative studies as evidence that drinking sodas causes obesity. The scientifically illiterate news media then treats each such study as "further evidence." A thousand bad studies don't equate to an airtight case--they just mean that resources were wasted doing a thousand bad studies.
“What sort of person drinks black coffee?”
That would be me. At Starbucks my order is “a large of whatever is strongest, and black, please”. DH puts cream and sweetener in his, but I’d rather go without that have my coffee all gussied-up.
Re diet pop, I drink about a can a week, but I figure there has to be a lot of bad stuff in it. I prefer TAB, but it’s hard to find any more.
The junk science that is believed by people today and by far overshadows true science, simply ignores the data points that don't fit the current (popular) theory. People will say the data is wrong (it might well be), but their theory can't be wrong. A true scientific theory is only as good as the next data point that supports it. If a data point is not in line with the theory, or helps to disprove it, a good scientist will do everything to repeat that data point. A good scientists should hold the theory and the data on equal plains if they don't "match". If the data can't be repeated, then it was probably in error and they need to explain what went wrong. There are is always some abberant data, but it shouldn't be thrown out - it must be explained. If the data point IS repeatable and disproves the theory, then the theory must be changed because it was proven wrong.
Too many people today just totally ignore information and data that disproves their theory because they are fond of that theory. They get away with it because they often throw in the term, "it MAY" cause this or that. The media and human emotion then carry it along. The whole global warming thing is a great example of that. So is carbon dating to hundreds of thousands of years.
I have not had good experience with aspartamine either and I have fibromyalgia. I have no reason to suspect that it caused the fibro, none whatsoever. However, my own personal theory is that the aspartamine really causes a flare in some symptoms. (Many artificial ingredients do also). I have tested this time and time again with always the same results over the last 30 years or whenever it came out. And many of those times were when I ingested it without knowing it.
My bottom line (as a scientist) - don't say that experience defies science, but raher realize that experience (data) DEFINES science. Look to see if it is a unique experience. If it is, put a mental question mark by both the experience and the theory and wait for more data. Science is NOT exact - it is just a description of things that might happen after certain events. And that is always only as good as the next data point that supports it.
There really isn’t a good reason to make it a double blind test.
No you don't.
gattaca ~ gives me a headache
No it doesn't.
Just ask Mase. You just think you have a headache!
And that's only because you are incapable of appreciating the pure beauty of Science, untainted by personal observation...
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