“Diet Drink Dangers ?”
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide consume daily artificial sweeteners, which are found in a wide variety of foods and drinks, including soft drinks, cakes and foods for diabetics, as well as medicines. The artificial sweetener aspartame is used globally in more than 6,000 products, including Diet Coke products. Periodically, news headlines tout the so-called dangers of artificially sweetened drinks, the latest of which claimed that diet drinks are linked to strokes and dementia. But, is there proof of this assertion? The short answer is “not really.” The study, published online in Stroke on April 20, 2017 claimed to show that consumption of one can of diet soda or more each day was associated with a three times increased risk for stroke and dementia over a 10-year follow-up period compared with individuals who drank no artificially sweetened beverages. But, lead author, Matthew P. Pase, PhD, Boston University School of Medicine, said, “We can’t show cause and effect in this study as it is observational in design, but given the popularity of diet drinks we desperately need more research on this question.”
