[arghwhat]

One important note (also mentioned in the study) is that this may be a reverse causality.

Their study also indicates an association between high Artificially Sweetened Beverage ("ASB" in the study) consumption and high total calorie intake/obesity. The link may therefore that obesity was the cause of all diabetes incidents and that obese individuals tend to want to reduce weight by drinking diet soda (and are less likely to have preference for foods and drinks traditionally considered healthy like plain water or tea), without the diet soda consumption itself being a contributing factor.

(There will be many correlations like this - e.g., if you look at statistics for knee problems you might find a large overlap between people with diabetes and with knee problems, because obesity causes both more load on the knees and a higher risk of diabetes.)

Quote:

> The mechanisms linking high habitual consumption of ASBs and the risk of type 2 diabetes are not fully understood. It is suggested that reverse causality between obesity and ASB intake may partly explain the observed association, where individuals with relatively high BMI at baseline might be using ASB to try to reduce weight and follow a healthy lifestyle [35,37]. Our results, showing the attenuation of the association of ASB with type 2 diabetes after adjustment for body size measures, were consistent with supportive of obesity being a confounder of the association.