[biot]

I like how all the people who benefit from artificial sweeteners are refuting something which the study doesn't claim. For example:

  "The International Sweeteners Association (ISA) says it strongly
   refutes the claims made in the study: 'There is a broad body of
   scientific evidence which clearly demonstrates that low-calorie
   sweeteners are not associated with an increased risk of obesity
   and diabetes as they do not have an effect on appetite, blood
   glucose levels or weight gain.'"

It's true that artificial sweeteners have no immediate effect on appetite, blood glucose levels, nor weight gain. None of these are claims made by the study. Everyone is refuting the immediate effects of artificial sweeteners. The study claims that after consuming artificial sweeteners, if you then consume something naturally sweet, the prior consumption of an artificial sweetener alters your glucose tolerance levels.

It's the equivalent of saying that removing all the trees from around rivers has no effect on fish population because clearly fish don't live in trees. But it's the secondary effects of this which such a statement ignores: the increase in soil erosion impacting water quality, change in water temperature due to having more direct sunlight, and so on.

Also:

  "'Decades of clinical research shows that low-calorie sweeteners
   have been found to aid weight-control when part of an overall
   healthy diet, and assist with diabetes management,' says Gavin
   Partington of the British Soft Drinks Association."

This has little meaning without having a reference point to compare the results to. If the study is correct, take one group of people who use diet soft drinks with an overall healthy diet and compare it to another group of people who consume the same overall healthy diet but drink water instead of diet soft drinks, and the group that drinks water should have a better glucose tolerance response than the diet soft drink group.

[function_seven]

You just hit one of my pet peeves. "...when part of a healthy diet". Only cigarettes fail that test as far as I can tell.

Eating deep-fried Twinkies and a 32oz Mountain Dew is not bad for you, when done as part of an overall healthy diet.

[dragonwriter]

Right, by definition, consuming any food is not bad for you, when done as part of an overall healthy diet -- any overall diet in which the food was bad for you would not, ipso facto, be a healthy diet when that food was included.

The claim would only begin to be meaningful if instead of "when part of a healthy diet" it was "when included in an otherwise healthy diet".

[graeme]

Not necessarily. You could smoke one cigarette now, and you would be less healthy. But if you never smoked again, you would not have transitioned to unhealthy

The first term is relative, the second absolute. If the diet is overall healthy, it's possible it has some bad food. It's less healthy than if it didn't, but not unhealthy.

[epaladin]

Which just made me wonder if it's possible to train a hidden markov model for detecting that. Trigger a flag that says "wowzers, now you're in unhealthy state territory". Otherwise it's real hard to tell if occasional engagements with unhealthy behaviors are having an impact on health overall. I imagine we'll get to the point of being able to do this sort of thing in about five years.

[bitexploder]

"In about 5 years" is often code for, "It is really cool, and it seems feasible, but I have no idea how difficult it really is."

Also, we have the basic capability for this now. Regular blood testing, etc. Get a physical. Get blood work every 3-6 months. Its just basic stats for your body. I do this. To me it is like checking the oil levels in a car. Why would you not collect this type of data for your body, which is arguably one of the most important "possessions" a person can own?

[graeme]

What's included in the blood testing?

I'm in Canada, and the idea of routine blood testing for young people (I'm 29) doesn't seem to have caught on.

[dragonwriter]

> Which just made me wonder if it's possible to train a hidden markov model for detecting that. Trigger a flag that says "wowzers, now you're in unhealthy state territory".

Unlikely, because how much "less healthy" becomes "unhealthy" is an arbitrary subjective point rather than being something fixed and objective (and because the degree of health impact of various decisions varies widely based on individual factors that aren't all known with any kind of precision, so, even with a fixed objective of 'healthy state', the point at which the average person would reach it and the point at which you reach it may be not at all similar.)

> I imagine we'll get to the point of being able to do this sort of thing in about five years.

I imagine we'll not be meaningfully closer to being able to do this than we are now in about five years. (OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone marketing something that purports to do this in that time.)

[hueving]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you implying there is evidence showing that smoking one cigarette causes you to be permanently unhealthy?

[bmelton]

His claim is the opposite of that.

Smoking one cigarette does not make you unhealthy. Smoking one cigarette does make you slightly less healthy.

Think of it as death by a thousand cuts. Lopping off the tip of my finger won't likely kill me, though it does hurt. Keep lopping though, and eventually I am less and less healthy, until at some point, I am dead.

[spmurrayzzz]

That depends on which camp you plant your flag. Dr. Ron Rosedale would probably have something to say about that insofar as any overintake of dietary glucose is a bad thing. We simply don't need even moderate amounts of it in our diets, especially for primarily sedentary lifestyles.

His position is that even a small degree of glycosylation contributes to accelerated aging, albeit the degree of which determines how chronic and insidious that damage will actually be.

I tend to agree with his take on the matter. Objectively speaking, especially if you subscribe to the insulin hypothesis of adiposity, there are several "unhealthy" biomarkers that occur as a result of intaking deep-fried twinkies and mountain dew — irrespective of peri-indiscretion nutrition.

[Retric]

Mountain Dew like most soda is bad for you. If nothing else it's bad for your teeth and the acid harms your throat.

Now, it's not all that harmful and if your starving the calories are useful but starvation is not a healthy diet.

[sillysaurus3]

It seems like we have no idea whether soda is bad for you, since people who consume soda live long lives. As far as I know, their throats are also fine. It's not even necessarily a fact that sugar harms teeth as long as someone is brushing each day.

[weego]

Soda is not in contact with your teeth for long enough to cause any damage, the acidity in basically all fruit would be just as bad by any meaningful measure of harm.

Carbohydrate snacks like crisps etc are much worse.

[Retric]

People eat fruit fairly quickly. But, many people sip soda for hours a day which is a vary different situation. Not only do they get acid but the constant low levels of sugar promote significant bacterial growth.

Also, unlike fruit soda has water and sugar, but no nutrients what so ever.

http://www.wda.org/your-oral-health/sip-all-day

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/06/11/5-m...

[Retric]

So, in your wold view death is the only measure of harm? Because, most people also assume pain such as that caused by a cavity's is also bad. And, historically people had far fewer cavity's before refined sugar became part of everyone's diet. Modern dentistry can mitigate that significantly, but it's not a panacea.

edit: The studies linked are interesting, but I think this quote stands on it's own.

"Soft drinks have emerged as one of the most significant dietary sources of tooth decay, affecting people of all ages." http://www.colgate.com/app/CP/US/EN/OC/Information/Articles/...

Harnack L, Stang J, Story M. Soft drink consumption among US children and adolescents: Nutritional consequences. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 1999;99:436-444.

Brimacombe C. The effect of extensive consumption of soda pop on the permanent dentition: A case report. Northwest Dentistry 2001;80:23-25.

[noonespecial]

"Part of this nutritious breakfast". Actual nutritious breakfast pictured surrounding nutritionally vapid sugar-coated ground corn husk "cereal" thats probably not even properly considered a food.

[electromagnetic]

Well to be fair you could smoke a cigar infrequently enough to have no defineable effect on your health and the act of sitting down and relaxing quietly for a half hour for a good cigar is likely to be beneficial to your health.

So given enough twisting of the facts you can argue anything is good in moderation. I mean infrequent heroin use given the proper precautions and clean product could be part of a "healthy lifestyle", but its still shooting heroin.

Part of a healthy diet should mean you can do it at least daily not once a month.

[nnnnni]

Well, except for the mouth cancer...

[electromagnetic]

Except alcohol does the same and people consume that a lot more frequently and doctors advocate moderated use.

[UrMomReadsHN]

I think they say that because they don't want people to think there is just one thing in their diet they have to change.

[aaron695]

Pet peeves, falling for anti-cigarette propaganda.

In moderation with a healthy diet they are as fine as Twinkies and 32oz Mountain Dew.

Like Mountain Dew they are abused so perhaps abstinence is best, depends on personal will power.

[azakai]

> It's true that artificial sweeteners have no immediate effect on appetite

Yes, but the quote you give doesn't mention immediate effects in particular. And to the contrary, they mention things like obesity and diabetes which are not immediate effects.

To me, it sounds like they are not saying what you say they are.

[biot]

The mentions of obesity and diabetes are written as direct causal relationships. To rearrange their quote without changing the meaning:

  "because low-calorie sweeteners do not have an effect on
   appetite, blood glucose levels or weight gain, they are not
   associated with an increased risk of obesity and diabetes"

Essentially, this says "if (no effect) then (no risk caused by effects)". As long as it's true that low-calorie sweeteners themselves don't have an effect on appetite, blood glucose levels, or weight gain then they're free to make the above implication. However, the statement is only a partial truth and has no bearing on the study under discussion.

If they wanted to directly respond to the study, they wouldn't keep quoting old studies which didn't attempt to investigate the results of the new research; they should instead say that they will study it and attempt to replicate the results, then issue a statement once they've understood the full implications. Of course, that wouldn't be a strong defensive statement of their vested interest so they of course can't say that.

[curun1r]

They are saying what they always say whenever anyone questions the safety/healthiness of their products. Their response is the equivalent of a form letter. It's akin to the statements that the tobacco companies made before congress, well-rehearsed and carefully worded to be deceiving. It's why they always seem to not address the specifics of what the scientific study actually found...because they intentionally aren't addressing it.

It's part of their larger playbook for continuing to poison the US population. That same playbook also has strategies for when regulation is proposed (increase campaign contributions, stress individual freedom to choose and responsibility and begin self-imposed reforms) and they've been doing it ever since the McGovern report suggested that our food might be harmful to our health. Thus far, they've gotten away with it every single time.

[aragot]

For each quote, I wondered whether the journalist selected the worst part to make them look arrogant/ignorant. Later in the article there are more reasonable answers they could have used, saying there has been research (and funds?) allocated to this topic and they had found nothing, saying that there are several levels of peer review until a scientific study acquires the credit of trust, that further research and counter-studies are necessary before anything is confirmed, that based on the current knowledge there is nothing to worry about.

The obsession of dodging the issue of the PR people quoted in the article raised red flags all around my mind.