ExRx.net

I drink all of mine through a straw :>

What, the critical thinking course? I need to go on a course about critical thinking because I don't believe everything you've told me? Sounds a little contradictory and that's what I took as more of a personal attack than a helpful response. If i've taken it the wrong way then I apologise.

The topic's went stale anyway. I was always just taking a middle ground (why risk it...). I posted the links because you questioned my sources, so, I just posted them. I wasn't saying everything on them was deffinitly true, or not true, I was just posting the links that I got the info from.

KPj

That http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9714421 link in particular?

Not anything in particular, all of it collectively makes me think there MAY be 'something' to it and, I just don't think there's much pleasure in drinking diet soda, coming from someone who you could possibly have been classed as having an addiction to full sugar soda.

My original was that I find (what I posted) difficult to ignore but, in the case of Green Tea vs Diet Soda, then surely Green Tea is the better option. And then - and again - 'why risk it?'. As i said, if you drink nothing but water for one month then drink some soda, it'll taste like crap.

However if there's somethign wrong with the link, feel free to let me know what that is.

KPj

I don't see anything wrong with it. I'd rather keep formaldehyde levels in my liver and such at natural levels if possible, unless there's some compelling reason otherwise.

I didn't think Formaldehyde was something you wanted in your system at all. However, Formaldehyde seems to be the issue here. So, I don't really know what the deal is.

I've not actually been saying anything deffinitive either way (if we look back, the OP wanted studies or links, some were provided by others, I provided some opposing links, bizarely one was from the same source as links saying it was safe). I just don't think it's worth the risk, that's always been my point.

I don't think it would bother me one bit if, 10 years from now it was proved beyond doubt that there was no risk whatsover. I wouldn't feel like i'd missed out on something. However, I would be pretty concerned if it was the other way around. It's not like it's a fine wine or anything, it's diet soda. I just think, 'all of this over diet coke?'. It would appear that even the cancer.gov site isn't sure about it, either.

I'm pretty tired of the aspartame thing now

I'll just keep drinking water and the diet soda drinkers keep drinking diet soda and, hopefully, nothing bad will happen. I'm sure there's worse things that we all put in our bodies.

KPj

No, no, no... You are NOT supposed to believe everything I tell you. That's the whole point. Your not supposed believe things, just to believe them. There are ways to know things. Belief is not needed. That's why I mentioned the baloney detection kit. It's good for detecting baloney.


Middle ground is an illogical idea. There is not middle ground in every topic. This is the sort of intellectual relativism, where two sides are given equal weight regardless of the quality of the arguments. One where no matter how obviously true something is, the real truth has to be in between it and whatever nonsense someone happens to make up.

There are plenty of things wrong with it. For example, this reaction happens in rats, there is no evidence it happens in people. Another example is that the rats where given extremely high amounts of the aspartame.

OK, I get you, understood.

I know what you're saying. I don't think EVERYTHING is black and white but I know some things are.

In this case i'm just not well versed enough to call it either way. This is how I generally learn things with regards to exercise - I find reliable sources and basically use their opinion to base my experience on before forming my own. With exercise for example I started on this site, I got good advice which made sense and worked (probably from yourself included). I got directed to other sources which I trusted because it came from here. One example is Cressey. Obviously one of my issues was my shoulder. I done things Cressey recommended and it worked, so done more he recommended and it still worked. From there I used him as a reference becasuse I trusted what he said. Along the way I learned a lot and studied more and was able to think more for myself. Now I feel i'm pretty confident enough in establishing what is 'true', what's not, and what's a grey area, and just generally thinking for myself. I'll never claim to know it all, though. Infact the more I learn the more I need to learn.

I'm at the same stage with nutrition as I was with exercise a few years ago. Some sources I would consider reliable say one thing, some say another. I trust both sides so that's why I can't call it. Because one side says "there MAY be a risk" I think "well I don't want to take that risk". One example is PN/Berardi have stated that it's all overblown and it's not a risk. I basically live my life by PN. Where as Cosgrove - a cancer survivor - believes there MAY be a risk. I'm certaily not in a position to say any of them are wrong.

Maybe in a few years i'll come back on and say - yes, what i thought about aspartame was bullsh*t. For now i'm sitting on the fence and just think that, since there's no benefit, I would rather just give it a miss.

I also like what nick tumminello says - If it doesn't make scientific sense, or common sense, then it's nonsense. There are things that seem to make common sense, but have no science behind it (foam rolling, for example). To me a high dose of aspartame in animals showing risk would indicate that there just MIGHT be a risk to humans consuming it regularly over the long term. Common sense is a grey area but for me, that's common sense. It looks like it's lacking in the science but, only time will tell what happens with that.

I do understand what you're saying and appreciate the feedback but the above is where i'm coming from. Long winded as usual for me.

KPj

Rats are a really good human metabolic analogue, so their reaction is significant. Also the amount is seemingly equivalent to 6 cans of diet soda for an adult male human - not at all unreasonable.

Just to play devils advocate and this is basically a guess but, 6 cans to a rat may be the equivelant of 60 for a human. I'm not saying that's true it would just make sense that a large dose to a rat may not be a large dose to a human. For example I would imagine it would take significantly less alcohol to get a rat drunk

This is also why i'm not in the habbit of posting studies - especially one's like these. There's a lot of variables to consider before you(well, I) can understand them properly.

KPj

Well, to come up with 6 cans diet for a human I did the math for linear body mass scaling of a 180 lb human vs a 1 kg rat - it's probably pretty fair.

If you're going to question the study, the main thing is whether formaldehyde in those concentrations is really a long-term health hazard. In the abstract the concentration is not specified nor identified conclusively as a hazard.

Rats are sometimes a good analogue, but not always. The common ancestor we share with them is pretty far back. As for the total, that doesn't sound right, but I don't remember what it was. even if it was 6 cans, that's an awful lot to be taking in on a regular basis.

However the biggest negative is all the other studies that show nothing. You can't discount that with 1 questionable study, that many scientists say is not conclusive. That is an example of confirmation bias.

With exercise it can be a little tricky because there isn't a lot of good conclusive data. So all you can really do is listen to people who seem to know what they are doing or just experiment. Other topics are a little more cut and dry though.

The study didn't claim to be conclusive, it was just pointing out a possible risk. I think much more study is warranted on these things. I consume a lot of Ace-K and sucralose since they're in ON protein - I'd rather not, but I take the risk to get the benefits of the convenient extra protein.

I certainly wouldn't add to the risk with something as pointless as diet soda though.