So really, you only need to be thinking about this if you’re having either of them as a regular part of your diet. And if that’s the case, well, this is the part where you really should listen to all those people who recommend that you acquire a taste for water.
But this is almost entirely due to alarmists who were never using good science to justify their perspectives (just like with MSG). The reality is that aspartame is one of the most studied substances in history and it's effect on humans is very clear.
Another thing that irks me (though less so), is that occasionally somebody says for an aspartame drink that "you're drinking that poison?", when clearly, we would know if it really were poison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdKAPzsxr_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5IABzlj8w
It really doesn't seem to me like the artificial sweeteners should be the critical aspect of this finding, as this affects anything that triggers insulin release. Is there any data linking sulfonylureas with atherosclerosis? Based on this finding, one might expect that to be a consequence of their insulin releasing effect.
That said, your point #2 sounds incorrect - aspartame doesn’t cause atherosclerosis, it aggravates atherosclerosis. The key difference there as it relates to type 2 diabetes patients is that presumably if they had atherosclerosis as an existing condition, they would qualify for a glp-1 with cvd benefits, and not be on sulfonylureas in the first place.
Most food will "markedly increase insulin", and sugary food / drinks even more so.
Obviously people should try to eat healthy and ideally avoid artificial sweeteners, but in reality people are not machines and they're not going to drink water and eat lean meat and veg every day just because that's what's best for them.
It seems to me that for most people who like to occasionally consume soft drinks that switching to a comparable artificially sweetened alternative is going to be better for you even if there are still risks.
A study titled "eating cake aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation" isn't reason to never eat cake. It's just reason to be sensible and consume in moderation.
People have been consuming artificially flavoured foods and drinks daily for decades at this point. While these things are interesting to know and consider, no one should be concerned about this unless you're consuming an excessive amount of Aspartame. And even then it's almost certainly better for you to do that than consume excessive amounts of sugar.
[Magnesium helps my wife sleep better, but she can only take it at night or it makes her sleepy. I take half in the morning, and I think it helps because we're likely not getting enough in our mineral-depleted foods.]
>People with little saliva and a habit of frequently consuming acidic beverages are at increased risk for enamel erosion. The basic recommendations are to drink water as the first choice and eat fresh fruits as an integral part of a healthy and balanced diet.
>Health professionals should motivate the population to change their behavior regarding the consumption of acidic drinks, and recommendations should be made at the policy level to discourage the consumption of sugary drinks. Interventions that would improve oral health and overall health are widely available.
Normal sodas are pretty acidic - coke has a pH of around 2.5
Soda water has a pH of 5-6.
Your saliva has a pH of around 6-7.
Water, of course, is at 7.
Remember we're dealing a log scale here, and that going from 2.5 to 5.5 isn't a 2x improvement - it's closer to a 1000x reduction in the amount of acid. If replacing soda with soda water is what gets them to stick to it, that's what they should do.
I’m drinking significantly less than I was when drinking sparkling.
So again, the question now becomes is it better to be fully hydrated drinking “acidic” sparkling water, or is it better to only drink plain water and be dehydrated? (Rhetorical question)
>The increased amounts of calcium, phosphate, and fluoride in the drinks limited the severity of erosion by changing the solubility of the enamel [82]. The decline in enamel’s surface microhardness and mineral loss were both dramatically halted by the addition of CaGP to the carbonated drinks.
Most seltzer water has fluoride in it, and your tap water has fluoride in it (if you're making your own at home).
Also the methodology in this study was purely in vitro, not real world conditions. Notably, the lack of saliva.
>Under normal circumstances, human saliva forms a physical barrier, a film, and prevents direct contact between the tooth enamel surface and acidic beverages, thus protecting teeth from erosive attack by acids [45,84,85,86]. However, the erosion tests were carried out without saliva
Also, seems like the study was more on soft drinks in particular and not "other acidic drinks" which may include seltzer water.
>Soft drink consumption during meals was linked to mild to severe tooth damage [65]. No matter when they were consumed, other acidic meals and beverages were not linked to tooth damage [40].
Anyway, net is this: I'm not saying sparkling water carries absolutely no risk, but linking a study like this and cherry picking quotes to make it sound like sparkling water is going to destroy your teeth is misleading.
If drinking sparkling water helps you kick your soda habit, please definitely make the switch. It's so much better for you. The increased risk from drinking sparkling water compared to still water is not worth worrying about if sparkling water provides a quality of life increase for you.
Everything in healthcare is about moderated risk and counterbalancing it against lifestyle.
Artificial sweeteners do not need to be as safe as bottled water.
They just need to be less harmful than sugar. Which they are, because sugar is unequivocally, very very bad for you.
So all fruit is bad for you? Lactose is unequivocally bad? Even for nursing infants? How deep does "unequivocally" go exactly?
I hope you really just mean "added sugar in soda-tier quantities" when you say sugar is "unequivocally, very very bad". But I think this kind of hyperbole is part of why food science has got an awful reputation. Even the most 'enlightened' sources (and there are plenty of competing enlightened sources right now) seem unable to stop the totalizing language.
To a first approximation, "sugar is bad for you" seems to be a succinct lie-to-children[1] default, from where exceptions can be established. Whole fruits with lots of sugars (as opposed to e.g fruit juices with a comparable amount) are purportedly less-bad because they're accompanied by enough fiber to slow digestion and make the sugar less bioavailable.
I regularly drank Diet Cokes 25 years ago, and remember some batches would be "worse" than others.
And, whether from cans or plasic bottles, you're either also getting the can's lining or the plastic from the container mixed into the soda, right? I mean, it's an acidic liquid, so there is bound to be some dissolution of the lining into the fluid, by my understanding, with the more the warmer the temp.
And I do wonder what temp the bottling takes place at.
Of course, there's methanol is fruit and vegetable juices and your body will metabolize pectin containing fruit to methanol too.
Now I just start the day with a mug of loose leaf tea and keep re-steeping it as the day goes on. By the time noon comes around there is little to no caffeine left but I still get some tea flavor as well as the hit of hot liquid my body is used to.
When at home I brew gong fu style which keeps more caffeine as I reload the gaiwan or tea pot but that’s just a preference of mine. Highly recommend Chinese/Taiwanese teas, especially Oolong if you’re looking for an alternative to coffee or soda.
Then again...don't drink soda so neither here not there really
Aspartame has been studied for 50 years. The risks are very well understood. This single study on mice does not shift that.
>Data and code availability
>No original code was generated in this study.
You see it in the computational fields too - often the best you can get is an uncommented mess of Python and Shell scripting. If you get anything at all.
The worst are those that train ML models to predict a property, spend several pages talking about how good it is... And just never bother including the model artifacts. IMO that's the stuff that should get papers rejected.
...cue the onslaught of wise-guy comments claiming sliced carrots aren't whole foods.
I like my day's first glass of water to have a half a lemon's worth of juice freshly squeezed into it.
My cold-brew (or occasionally espresso) coffee gets real maple syrup (no Log Cabin bullshit sugar-fest) and half-and-half or maybe whole milk.
Sometimes I mix yogurt into a mug of milk towards the end of the day.
That's the fullness of my liquids, except that which comes naturally with food.
It's a bit of straw-man, but I'm try to point out that we can't appeal to being in alignment with our evolution when even those barebone items have been refined and we wouldn't have eaten them in our prehistory.
Also think of the poor, they can't afford carrots.