[v1tyaz]

Very misleading. In fact, the author of this study is a behavioral neurologist, hence studying human behavior relating to diet drinks rather than diet drinks themselves. Drink as much diet soda as you like, if the rest of your diet is healthy then you're fine. This article is just typical fear-mongering against artificial sweeteners, I'm surprised it got up voted here.

[DanBC]

> I'm surprised it got up voted here

A disturbing number of HN readers have batshit insane viewpoints on food.

[coldtea]

Yes, because being sceptical of substances that get approved after some hasty testing, with big push from a few large multinationals is "batshit insane".

The sceptic thing is to thing scientists are above human and infallible. And to ignore tons of precedents of BS substances and drugs being brough to the market, only to be recalled a few years or even a few decades later.

Because "science" is a magic word, that somehow overcomes systemic problems in how burecreacies work, how people (including whole teams) react to money, and how judgements can be wrong. To suggest otherwise is "batshit insane".

After all, those doing the safety testing can take their sweet time to study long term results, aren't ever lured by money, and understand all possible effects of the substances they approve equally well as the collective scientific community understands non artificial substances used for centuries or millenia, right?

[coldtea]

>Very misleading. In fact, the author of this study is a behavioral neurologist, hence studying human behavior relating to diet drinks rather than diet drinks themselves. Drink as much diet soda as you like, if the rest of your diet is healthy then you're fine.

Only people are not Vulcans -- to seperate such things as easy as you put it. For example, who told you that, from a behavioral standpoint, drinking diet soda and having a healthy diet are compatible?

If anything, the "behavioral neurologist" suggests otherwise.

Your idea that diet soda is totally OK (which btw, needs a citation), is based on the premise that people can easily do the healthy diet and still consume diet soda. Which might be true for some, but clearly does not work for most -- not because it is physically impossible, but because other factors (e.g behavioral, psychological, etc) are also into play. Dismissing those as irrelevant does a huge disservice to studying the matter.