ExRx.net

I find all the talk on Aspartame quite difficult to ignore. It's not so much of an issue for me as all I drink is water and green tea, but i've seen a few discussions and a study or 2, couple of videos and find it quite alarming. There's a video - i'll try and find it and post - that discusses how there's been a big increase in brain tumours since around 1984 and, it just so happens that Aspartame starting getting widely used at this time. I found that trend similar to the low fat fight and obesity, which for me is one of the most significant things that show low fat doesn't work well - the fact that it began in ~70's and, since this time, obesity (and carb consumption) has risen steadily.

However, my knowledge on these subjects aren't great so you could also say i'm open to manipulation since I don't really know any better. However, green tea vs Diet coke/coke zero/whatever, the answer seems obvious. As PN state, 1 billion chinese can't be wrong. If you're like me, you'll not really like Green Tea but after a while you can't live without it.

KPj

Well, the cancer angle is sketchy, but if there's no benefit and a possible downside, might as well avoid it if you can.

The bigger downside I think is the psychological effect. Everyone I know that's virtually addicted to artificial sweeteners (ie, diet colas) also eat unhealthily in conjunction. Comments like "mmm, now I need some chips" are ubiquitous. I've never heard someone take a sip of water and say "mmm, now I need some chips".

Also I see a pronounced correlation between high artificial sweetener intake and anxiety/stress issues. I suspect it may be reverse-causal though. Ie, people with anxiety/stress issues tend to more susceptible to addictions and latch on to artificial sweeteners. Better than cigarettes, I suppose.

I don't know any good pre-bottled green tea brands that are widely available in the US. I know Ito-en makes some great canned teas, and I used to drink some from the Coco-Cola company when I was in Japan - Karadameguricha is a green tea/other tea mix, for example. And Suntory makes a great green tea. All plain, nothing in them but tea. However, good luck finding them outside of Asian grocery markets near a large Japanese population. Even then, they aren't cheap.

What I do instead is make a big pot of green tea and keep it in my fridge. I use it as the basis of my shakes, instead of water, and drink it when I want something cold. I use fairly cheap bagged green tea, decaf, for this.

When I actually want real green tea, I make that using loose tea leaves. But that's because I like some kinds of green tea, so I drink it for enjoyment.

So if "clean" (only tea) bottled brands are hard to come by, I'd try to find a bagged tea you like and just get into the habit of making it to drink. Get your own (glass) bottle, fill it up, and there you go! You can even flavor it yourself...throw in a crushed mint leaf for mint, or dab in honey post-workout, stuff like that.

Can't argue here...even when I wasn't addicted to caffeine for a brief period I still needed my diet 7up or something to feel totally normal. Tho the diet drinks didn't lead me to junk food though...just stressful days

YOu can get the Grean Tea bags in most supermarkets but they're more than likely crap. I always have a box of those but, a Chinese workmate of mine gets me leaves from 'China Town' in Glasgow. He drinks it all the time so just gets for me when he's getting for himself. Quite handy. I have no idea what make/brand/whatever they are though. Still don't know if they're any good. You can make it stronger and it's less bitter compared to the bags but, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

KPj

For most carcinogens, there is a delay of several years between exposure and the diagnosis of cancer. Thats one of the things that makes them so hard to spot. With aspartame use and increased brain cancer (a non-specific term, by the way, there are many different brain cancers) occurring in the same year, I wouldn't think that's a very significant association.

It's not so much that I believe it, it's more a case of - What's the point in risking it for fizzy juice that tastes like water anyway.... You can wean yourself off these things. Being Scottish, I had a serious addiction to Irn Bru, and couldn't go a day without drinking it (for years!). If I drink it now, it's so sweet (and gassy) that it sickens me...

There is other 'evidence' (trying to use that term loosely) that I find difficult to discount but, it's all very heavy on the chemistry and a little beyond me. The trend of increased Tumours with increased aspartame use was just something that was more on my level of understanding

KPj

My brother told me that diet sodas, lead to the same insulin spike that regular sodas do, is this true?

You should keep in mind correlation does not prove causation. Frequently these experiments don't have proper control and variable groups too. You should also be wary of anything that is frequently found in chain e-mail.

Nope. The only thing that diet soda MIGHT do for certain people, is increase your cravings for sweets. However it is much less than regular soda.

Most people are not going to have a problem. Keep in mind in some cases caffeine can prevent weight loss in a small minority of sensitive people.

I'm not convinced that's been proven either way. I'd like to see a study that involved diet soda in combination with food, and with previously eaten and later eaten food. It seems plausible that screwing with your digestive/saliva systems could cause more rapid than normal uptake of other food, thus spiking insulin more than normal. I'm not aware of such a study though, sadly.

Thanks for the info but, I don't take my info from chain mail.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... erm=Trocho[author]%20AND%20formaldehyde

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/fact ... rmaldehyde

http://coachrouse.wordpress.com/2010/01 ... ned-world/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s- ... 50249.html

Anyway, if you read what I actually said - this stuff is way beyond me. I'm sure it can be picked apart. However, and again, why risk it? Just make yourself drink water/grean tea. Drink nothing but water for 1-2 months and anything else will taste like crap.

KPj

It's the "this doesn't hurt me" and "this doesn't help me" divide. Ironman's said in the past that diet soda isn't harmful, so why not drink it? I'm of the opinion that it's not helpful, so why drink it? That's colored by taste, of course. I dislike the aftertaste of artificial sweeteners, and I don't generally like sweet drinks. So it's easy for me not to drink it. Others love sweet drinks and don't mind (or don't taste) the sweeteners, so it's a different decision for them.


Ironman, sorry if I've misstated your position. That's what I pulled from our earlier discussions on this stuff.

I'm pretty much the same. Maybe a bit stronger opinion because I used to have a very sweet tooth and now I don't.

However, I only responded with those links due to the chain mail comment. Truth is I have a large number of folders on various topics that I saved studies/articles/videos in whenever I come across them but i'm always hesitant to post things like that. You can pick apart any study, they all have limits and, I've never seen a 'study war' actually come to anything conclusive but, there's always people obsessed with them.

I've never seen a 'study' to show the benefits of foam rolling but I still do it. It's obvious to me that there's benefit but, I won't wait a decade or 2 until there's enough correlation to equal causation.

By my logic you could say why bother eating a lot of protein because there's no smoke without fire. However, limiting protein in my view defies common sense before you even dig into the 'research' to see for yourself. If it makes sense i'll go with it. For me it just makes sense to drink water/tea instead of calorie containing drinks. Sure, things like Diet Coke have hardly any calories but, it's still fizzy. What about your teeth? Another reason to dump it and by doing that you side step the debate completely.

KPj

It is beyond debate that soda of any kind kills your teeth - specifically, the citric acid.

I ingest more artificial sweeteners than I'd like to, since protein powders have it. As previously mentioned I tried a Stevia-sweetened one once but it was really quite revolting. Protein powders are unnecessarily over-sweetened.