[guitarbill]

This is going to have 0% impact for patients, except for making hospitals an even more depressing place.

I can easily imagine I'd enjoy a sugary beverage to wash down the horrible hospital food. It isn't a huge stretch (no pun intended) that that might contribute to a more positive attitude and therefore faster recovery - especially if I was used to drinking it at home. Whilst it isn't healthy, I doubt a ban in hospitals would change my mind.

Finally, before implementing this they'd better be 100% sure drinks sweetened "artificially" (i.e. not sugar) are actually better for your health that the sugar-sweetened drinks. I think the jury is still out on that one.

[DanBC]

>I think the jury is still out on that one.

No, the jury is very clear that SSBs are harmful, and very much more harmful than artificially sweetened drinks.

No one credible suggests that artificially sweetened drinks are harmless.

[guitarbill]

> No, the jury is very clear that SSBs are harmful

One SSB is pretty harmless. Two is not harmful, etc. Two cans a day for several years? Probably. Worse than eating bigger portions for two years? Depends.

So if we're ignoring nuance, you could say "the jury is very clear that food is harmful", or at least some amount of some foods are equally harmful as SSBs.

> and very much more harmful than artificially sweetened drinks

I know this isn't how science works, but e.g. I found this one meta-study [0] which suggests that "both artificially sweetened beverages and fruit juice were unlikely to be healthy alternatives to sugar sweetened beverages for the prevention of type 2 diabetes". So again, it's not so clear cut at all.

If anything, it's an example of how diverse human metabolism is and/or what a shit-show dietary "science" is.

[0] http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3576

[tomjen3]

You can't talk about artificially sweetened drinks as one group, because there are a bunch of different sweetners, and all the evidence I have seen is that aspartame hasn't been proven to do any harm, unless you have a specific kidney diasea and its chemical makeup means that it will be broken down into sub components that are naturally in the body.