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.
Agreed. But I have no doubts that null and void, and others, will take issue with that fact.
It is a well established fact that people will experience certain effects if they expect them to occur.
Absolutely. And this is why any scientific test should be conducted exactly in the manner you suggested. For example:
During a four-month period, subjects received either aspartame, sugar or a placebo and underwent physical and psychological testing. Some subjects were given doses of up to 45 milligrams per kilogram of body weight--the equivalent of 17 to 24 12-ounce diet beverages for males and 14 to 19 12-ounce drinks for females. In the general population, most Americans who consume aspartame take in 3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight a day, the equivalent of one or less 12-ounce diet beverage. Despite the high consumption of aspartame, the 48 normal subjects showed no changes in mood, memory, behavior, electroencephalograms (which record the electrical signals of the brain) or physiology that could be tied to aspartame, Dr. Spiers found. Although some subjects reported headaches, fatigue, nausea and acne, the same number of incidences were reported by subjects taking placebo and sugar as those taking aspartame.
Study reaffirms safety of aspartame
The aspartame induced headache is, at least from what I've read, the most common complaint regarding aspartame. There has never been any substantiated, reproducible evidence that aspartame causes headaches, or that aspartame causes harm to humans in any way - provided that one doesn't abuse the ingredient. Just about everything can be dangerous to human health if it is consumed in excessive quantities.
So, the scientific evidence available at this time tells us that experiencing headaches or depression from aspartame is either psychosomatic in nature, or that something else is causing these results. Some researchers claim that a folate deficiency could be responsible. There is evidence that folate deficiency can explain many of the symptoms attributed to aspartame use. But, for some unknown reason, people experiencing these symptoms continue to blame aspartame, for which there is no legitimate scientific evidence to support their beliefs, rather than the more likely cause that sound science supports.
People can talk themselves into supporting all kinds of things, and then adopt a fixed mentality that no amount of evidence to the contrary will shake. This thread serves as a solid example of that very thing.
For me, Splenda has a slight chlorine taste, Equal tastes exactly like sugar, but beverages sweetened with it have a thinner mouth feel.
If the flavor maker uses chlorinated tap water and adds a hint of a neutral thickening agent (methyl cellulose, guar gum, agar, etc.) I can't tell the difference just by taste.
But what do I know? I still pine for cyclamates!
I have no idea whether the study you cite is legitimate or not. The chances are that, like so much of research today, the findings are meaningless.
I do know, however, that if the findings in this study were legit, anyone experiencing depression from aspartame would also experience depression from eating bananas. They would get really, really depressed from consuming a piece of grilled chicken with a cup of orange juice, or tomato juice, or orange juice, or red wine, because the same chemical compounds that make up aspartame are available here in significantly higher quantities.
Don't tell that to the fixed mentality folks, though, because they've already made up their minds, and something as simple as my example results in rabid denial and incessant snarking. But they're the ones employing the scientific method and critical thinking. Sure.
The end user gets theirs after it has been degraded by heat in their hot coffee or tea, in baked goods, in cold soda that spent a week in a rail car on a siding in Phoenix or was otherwise heat processed.
Besides pasteurization, commercial products are a stew of other chemicals, natural and man made, your "Gold Standard" test doesn't have the aspartame age in a pressurized container mixed with phosphoric acid, carbonic acid, citric acid, scorched sugar coloring and God knows what artificial flavors and colors.
Still probably not a problem if it always breaks down to phenylalanine+aspartic acid+methanol and never to phenylal+anineasp+articacidmeth+anol. The same group of letters doesn't always spell the same words...
Yep. The tobacco industry scientifically proved that tobacco is harmless.
The manufacturers of aspartame have scientifically proved that aspartame is harmless.
You continue to assume that the only possible breakdown products of aspartame are phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol.
"Let's eat Grandma" is not the same as "Let's eat, Grandma"...
"The pen is mightier than the sword" is not the same as
"The penis mightier that the sword"...
Is he from this planet?
if n&v says it makes her depressed then dammit it makes her depressed!
QED
Him. I’m a him.
You're taking the experience of one person, which is an odd case to begin with, and saying it establishes science? I find it hard to believe you're saying that because it does no such thing.
True science is the continual observation of data points in order to postulate a reasonable hypothesis or theory that explains those data points and predict what will happen.
All of that is true if you have a sample population and can can show that the results are statistically significant, while using the proper controls. But even then, your results would be significant for that sample population only. You cannot get significance from one repetition.
I had more than one prof in grad school who liked to reference a guy they called "One-Pig Wintrobe." This guy became a legend because he used one pig in his study, and then came to all sorts of hard conclusions based on the data from that one study. One pig, one repetition. Then he published it and spent years defending his nonsense. The profs used to admonish us to never become "One-Pig Wintrobes." Null and void is going one better than "One-Pig Wintrobe" and, apparently, so are you. You and he can be "One-person Wintrobe."
In order to analyze null and void's results statistically, he'd have to establish his conditions explicitly. He's doing/done no such thing.
If null and void were truly interested in the source of his depression, don't you think he should "experience" eating a couple of bananas, or cooked chicken with a glass of juice, and then tell us if he gets depressed? If depression doesn't come from ingesting significantly higher quantities of the same chemical compounds as found in aspartame, then I'd say he has a problem with his hypothesis, such as it is. Same with fybromyalgia. If the chemical compounds found in aspartame exacerbate your symptoms, there is no reason to believe that these same chemical compounds, that are found in bananas, or chicken and red wine, won't cause identical flare ups. This would be a pretty simple and effective comparison to conduct.
Now, if this was 1982, and these claims were being made, I'd say it was possible that the peptide is being absorbed as is and might be reaching the blood brain barrier, and actually making it across. Maybe something is getting to the brain before it gets cleared and that's what's causing the cited symptoms. But this isn't the early 80's, is it? Today, aspartame is the most studied food ingredient in history, and we know that this does not occur because of the massive amount of research that says it doesn't.
Assuming the action taking place, it could be caused by an enzyme deficiency that isn't allowing it to be broken down properly. Folate deficiency has been cited by numerous researchers as the cause for many of the symptoms being blamed on aspartame. If the protein is produced, and the co-factor (folate) isn't there, it cannot become an enzyme. Having that protein just floating around can cause all sorts of complications.
Alcohol dehydrogenase provides a good example. Alcohol dehydrogenase is an enzyme that causes the rapid breakdown of alcohol. Some people have low levels of this enzyme and can't tolerate alcohol (Eskimos). Then there are others who can drink mass quantities of alcohol and not get drunk, because they have a lot of this enzyme. There could be all sorts of reasons for the symptoms being blamed on aspartame, but null and void's feelings...um, I mean, experiences, don't offer much in the way of insight.
Clearly, it's much easier to just blame aspartame because null and void found confirmation of the non-scientific experiment he conducted on the internet. And if you can't trust the internet, who can you trust?
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.
Ok, I've read this several times and still don't know what to make of it exactly. Are you saying that the experience of one person is important? If so, there's absolutely nothing scientific about it. It's one data point. In order to repeat the same experiment you need to know all of the specifics, and be able to repeat it. Does one person make up a legitimate sample population to you? I can't imagine it does, but the experience of one person isn't science.
Aspartame is the most studied food ingredient in history, and there are reams of legitimate research proving there has never been any substantiated, reproducible evidence of any harm coming from it. To believe otherwise, in the face of all the evidence, is to defy science. This is not uncommon. Just look at an organization called CSPI. They engage in the defiance of science every day of the week. Their leader, Michael Jacobson, is one of the most rabid promoters of junk-science in the world -- and he holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from M.I.T.!?? Jacobson and his organization engage in the very same thing as null and void.
Some of his greatest hits:
“We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses, [and] meat.” — Jacobson, quoted in the Newark Star-Ledger, April 30, 2002
“CSPI is proud about finding something wrong with practically everything.” — CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson, in Washingtonian magazine, February 1994
“I’m not on the fence … about litigation [against restaurants]. I think it’s an extremely important strategy.” — Jacobson, speaking at the Public Health Advocacy Institute’s “Conference on Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic,” Jun 2003
Nice company.
Is that so? And what do you have to offer as evidence that the chemical make up of what comes out of the lab is different than what you consume? In what way, and how does that end up causing your depression?
The end user gets theirs after it has been degraded by heat in their hot coffee or tea
Ah, what chemical transformation occurs when we add aspartame to our coffee or tea that causes depression and/or headaches.
in baked goods
They use aspartame in baked goods? Really? I thought that's what they made sucralose for. Are you just making things up as you go along now?
in cold soda that spent a week in a rail car on a siding in Phoenix or was otherwise heat processed.
Soda starts out cold and is then subjected to heat in a rail car in Phoenix? Tell us exactly what happens to aspartame under those conditions and how that causes depression or headaches when consumed. You must be doing all sorts of googling now.
Besides pasteurization, commercial products are a stew of other chemicals, natural and man made, your "Gold Standard" test doesn't have the aspartame age in a pressurized container mixed with phosphoric acid, carbonic acid, citric acid, scorched sugar coloring and God knows what artificial flavors and colors..
You seem to have lots of questions, but not much in the way of answers. You are, however, doing a fine job of convincing yourself of all sorts of things. Your phobia of chemicals is really something. Your knowledge of artificial flavors is probably as bad as your understanding of how to conduct a scientific experiment. Don't feel bad, it's human nature to fear the things you don't understand.
Still probably not a problem if it always breaks down to phenylalanine+aspartic acid+methanol and never to phenylal+anineasp+articacidmeth+anol. The same group of letters doesn't always spell the same words...
Huh? I'm sure that means something to you, but I have no idea what that is. It is after 5 pm though.......
They did? Did they employ the "null and void" feelings approach to scientific experimentation? People just believed the industry when they made those claims?
The manufacturers of aspartame have scientifically proved that aspartame is harmless.
So have numerous independent studies that have been published in highly regarded journals that have been peer reviewed.
You continue to assume that the only possible breakdown products of aspartame are phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol.
What is the breakdown that is causing your symptoms? How is it different than the breakdown that happens when you eat a banana? Do you have any legitimate research to support you? Or, are you relying on those feelings again?
"Let's eat Grandma" is not the same as "Let's eat, Grandma".
If your Aunt had a beard, she'd be your Uncle.
Tell us exactly what happens to aspartame under those conditions and how that causes depression or headaches when consumed.
You are in the position of rejecting Alfred Wegener's hypothesis that continents drift, all of his data on matching coast lines, all of his data on matching geology, all of his data on fossils common to edges that so clearly fit together simply because he couldn't articulate how the continents could move.
Yet to quote Galileo, Eppur si muove "And yet it moves"
You act like you have the expertise to know all the possible chemical pathways and know to a level of certainty that none of those pathways, in none of their conceivable genetic or allergic variants could possibly cause anyone any ill effect. Nice act.
You would have blocked a century of pain and fever relief, because after it was discovered that aspirin works, it took a century of hard work to figure out how it works.
I make no claim to knowing how aspartame contributes to depression or headaches. I have an idea of how it could, but recognize that the finer details of the chemical breakdown, metabolic pathways and physiological effects are well beyond my expertise.
I am competent to observe a situation, formulate a question, make a hypothesis, make a prediction based on that hypothesis, test that hypothesis, and analyze the results.
Perhaps you recognize those steps?
Perhaps not.
That is precisely what I did, and I reached the conclusion that in my case consumption of aspartame is invariably linked with subsequent depression, even when I am unaware of the presence of the aspartame when I consume it, even when it is in a formerly "safe" product that changed formulation to include aspartame. This is as close to a double blind test as an individual can get.
Now tell me again that I can't be seeing what my own personal experience shows me, because it doesn't agree with your biases.
Seriously. I have a local source (or two) for the stuff, but I try to keep it mum, especially since there are enough sub rosa T@B aficianados out there that I might find the shelves (a small but very significant area of the soda aisle shelves) cleared of it before a major holiday weekend. Sometimes I call ahead and have the store manager save me some.
The reason for double-blind tests is that people who know they're receiving the experimental intervention expect a certain result from it, and report that result. It is almost impossible to determine how much of the effect they report is due to the experimental intervention, and how much is due to their expectations. A double-blind test helps to control for that complication.
The test is double-blinded because if it were only single-blinded, the person giving the pills could unconciously communicate whether they are giving drug or placebo and skew the result. Only when neither the researcher nor the subject knows which is which does it become truly possible to determine the effects of the drug. Even then, it's not straightforward; it can still take some heavy-duty statistical analysis to figure out if an effect is real.
Haha, that's funny. It reminds me of a story I heard in grad school, about how someone up the hall from us would measure the same sample three times, and call it a "triplicate." I bet the error bar was really small...
Do you have a science background? If so, When and where did you study? What is your area? Where and when is your experience in pharmacokinetics?
I graduated from Purdue and worked at Bristol Meyers in a R&D pharmaceutics lab.
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.
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