-12 points
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Also causes memory lose.

For those that downvote because you didn’t want to do so basic research. Here https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/can-diet-soda-increase-the-chances-of-dementia/#:~:text=Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters.,as learning and pain perception.

But again this is one source. There are others first heard about it from Reddit. But I also have first hand knowledge of the effects because my brother and father were heavy drinkers of the stuff and definitely effected their memories.

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16 points

What does

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11 points
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1 point

Source: just trust me bro

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3 points

Well I had the source right here, but then I drank a diet coke so…

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0 points

I forgor 💀

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-2 points

Can Diet Soda Increase the Chances of Dementia? June 12, 2019

Share:

Can Diet Soda Increase the Chances of Dementia The artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas—and thousands of other processed foods—are anything but sweet. In fact, they can be toxic to the brain. Consuming these sugar substitutes on a regular basis is not a recipe for a healthy memory.

Sherry, who weighed over 200 pounds on her 5’5” frame, guzzled diet soda thinking it would help her lose weight. It didn’t. Even worse, she started experiencing a host of symptoms—digestive issues, arthritis, forgetfulness, and confusion. In fact, Sherry’s diet soda habit was hurting her brain and putting her memory at risk.

That’s what a growing body of evidence shows. For example, a study in the journal Stroke found that drinking diet soda was linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

4 Ways Artificial Sweeteners Steal Your Mind

  1. Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters. One of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, aspartame is particularly damaging to the brain. Consider how it impacts aspartate, an excitatory neurotransmitter associated with memory as well as learning and pain perception. Aspartame stimulates this neurotransmitter. This may sound like a good thing, but in excessive amounts it overstimulates it, turning it into a potent neurotoxin that damages neurons, causes cell death, and is associated with a host of issues including memory problems and dementia.

https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/can-diet-soda-increase-the-chances-of-dementia/#:~:text=Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters.,as learning and pain perception.

Also my brother and dad were heavy drinkers of diet Coke I saw first hand experience of ut affecting their memory. With my dad we literally thought he had dementia. Then we cut it off and over time he got better.

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5 points
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0 points

The 2nd point in the blog post you present as a source is factually incorrect:

  1. Artificial sweeteners contribute to chronically high insulin.

The link (bolded by me) in the following text

One of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, aspartame is particularly damaging to the brain.

Goes to a page titled “Can Sugar Affect Your Cognitive Ability?”. They didn’t even link to the thing their text is claiming.

How can you take this trash seriously?

And personal anecdotes are absolutely worthless in discussions like this. Artificial sweeteners are consumed by a massive portion of the population. Any person who falls ill is likely to have consumed artifical sweeteners, so they will have incredible correlation with every disease on the planet.

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-1 points

Ah yes the noted scientific journal amenclinics.com/blog

Unassailable source there, bud.

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1 point

But he knows 2 people who drank some diet soda and later had memory issues! You can’t dispute those numbers!

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-6 points

I knew it was dodgy, aspartame always gives me a headache

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-4 points
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oh that’s why some soda drinks give me headache 😐 i just realised all the ones that used to make my head hurt, were all zero/diet versions. i switched back to full sugar ones a while back, now i see why i did.

i guess it’s a choice between teeth rot or cancer. i’ll take the teeth rot lol

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4 points
  1. No, aspartame does not give you a headache. It’s probably the caffeine that’s present in many sodas, such as coke. There is no known biological mechanism for aspartame to give you a headache. It’s just confirmation bias.

  2. The main harm of sugary drinks are the incredibly harmful effects from huge insulin spikes and damaging your liver. Teeth is pretty low on the list.

  3. Diet soda drinks are still harmful to your teeth because of their high acidity. Not as harmful as sugary drinks, but still. It’s the only proven major health concern of diet sodas.

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2 points

ah okay, i’m way out of my depth then. thanks for the advice

my specific problems are with fanta zero and coke cherry zero. if not the aspartame, then is there a possible cause that isn’t confirmation bias, or caffeine? i don’t have problems with other drinks with caffeine, and i should stress that i drink 2L of water a day regardless of whether i have a can of soda (in addition). i.e, it’s not headaches from dehydration either.

i’m willing to accept the possibility that i am an idiot and it’s just confirmation bias, but if anyone knows any other possible causes, i’d be happy to learn 🙂

another question i have regarding point #2, how much sugar is too much to cause the effects you mention (i.e in one can?). for context, i live in the UK, and most cans of soda are restricted to 16.5g of sugar for the whole can, because of a sugar tax. is 16.5g in one go enough to cause liver damage?

thank you for reading

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9 points

You’re probably just dehydrated from drinking a small amount of soda instead of a larger amount of water.

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3 points

I don’t think it’s this, only some fizzy drinks do it and it happens even if I drink a lot of water as well

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1 point

Probably because many of them have a non-negligible amount of caffeine.

Aspartame does not cause headaches.

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2 points

It sure tastes like cancer so I’m not surprised by this move.

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28 points

Like how cancerous is it? Considering the amount of diet pop my family consumes…I’m kinda worried

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3 points

Me too. I drink a lot of it daily.

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16 points

That will be the most important factor: the quantity needed to be harmful.

If it’s the equivalent of 30 cans of diet cola a day, this is a non-issue. They will give those details when they release the report.

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29 points
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5 points

I’ve been downwind of Canada on and off the last few weeks, it hurts to be outdoors

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2 points

Just hold your breath or breathe through your fingernails.

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62 points
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I’m pretty sure the last I read about this it was an absurd concentration that showed to potentially cause cancer. Nothing a human could drink in such concentrations.

That being said maybe that’s changed very very recently, I’ll be interested to see what their actual findings are.

A lot of things potentially cause cancer in huge concentrations.

Edit - From what I’ve read aspartame would be considered a possible carcinogen in the same class of Coffee. That doesn’t make quite the same headline though hah!

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Like the sun.

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9 points

It doesn’t even take that much sunlight really.

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-1 points

I figured if it was really all that bad it would have been banned a long time ago.

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5 points

Lead was used way past discovering it was dangerous, and is still used enough to cause problems in specific populations. Just like cigarettes. If there is a large moneymaking industry and it suddenly comes to light that what it is producing is dangerous, they have a lot of motivation to put money behind keeping that knowledge from getting out or, when it does, keep it from affecting law. They lobby/bribe, they abuse the legal system, whatever they can to avoid going under. As such, it’s not safe to assume that something is not dangerous simply because it hasn’t been banned.

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19 points

Not gonna preach or anything but that stuff is trash. You guys should quit honestly. I “reset” my tastes to less sweet stuff over time and it’s incredible how different things taste after you lose the expectations they should be sweet to be delicious.

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4 points

I eat my morning oats with unsweetened soy milk and cow’s milk now tastes like candy to me.

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4 points

Yeah seriously it’s nuts how used to sugar we get

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1 point

At most 1.15 x risk. Bigger effects are on risk for diabetes, heart disease and metabolic syndrome. By itself aspartame doesn’t appear to be too bad. But it causes sugar craving which can lead to excessive and poor eating habits.

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2 points

Same here. My wife and I only really drink water but her stepdad got bladder cancer after decades of drinking nothing but Budweiser and diet dew. He’s cancer free now but lost his bladder and prostate.

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14 points

Aspartame has been in common usage as a sugar alternative for literally decades.

If it was harmful or potent enough to be dangerous on a public or individual health risk then we would have certainly known about it by now. At this stage, even WHO, are saying it’s needed in HUGE concentrations.

Diet sodas aren’t the only things that we consume that contains aspartame. And aspartame isn’t the only thing we’re exposed to that has been linked to cancer and other deseases.

Just get on with life, enjoy what you enjoy in moderation. Don’t put too much thought into it otherwise you’ll just end up living in fear and avoiding everything.

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8 points

That was my gut reaction, but that logic also perpetuated leaded fuel.

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6 points
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Lead’s affects were well known, just ignored.

Aspartame is no different to any other food or substance we’re exposed to. You can’t buy anything in California that’s doesn’t have the ‘Known to cause cancer’ label on it.

Honestly, the rise in the diagnosis of cancer in industrial humans is a result of living longer and not being killed by something else.

Basically, what I’m saying is that as long as you live in moderation and overall healthy, a couple of pints of Diet Cola a day or a bottle of wine on a weekend isn’t going to kill you.

From annectdotal experience, the people who get the most knotted up about this stuff probably sit down all day and eat absolute crap. The aspartame is not the thing to worry about in that equation.

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2 points

Don’t panic until the report officially locked out. We are very certain that smoking and pork cause cancer, but smoking has a huge possibility of lung cancer while pork only increases your chances of cancer by something like 20%. This could be one of those “We are 99.999% certain that it increases your risk by 10%” sort of things.

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6 points

Not cancerous whatsoever. It’s approved for use worldwide and it’s one of the most studied additives on the planet.

It has been massively consumed worldwide for many decades, without causing any statistically noticeable increase in cancer rates.

Considering the incredibly negative health impact of sugary drinks, artificial sweeteners probably prevented millions of deaths over the decades they have been used.

Like the other “scary” “it causes cancer” studies, they probably stuffed a rat with its body weight of aspartame and when it developed cancer they figured it’s carcinogenic.

Completely disregarding that a can of artificially sweetened coke will have less than 1g of aspartame, which is 0.0002% of average human’s bodyweight.

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30 points
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It doesn’t take much for the WHO to classify something as a possible carcinogen.

Aspartame is now in the same risk category as cell phones, kimchee, and carpentry. And still considered less carcinogenic than meat, fried foods, hot beverages, and working a night shift.

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4 points

Faaar less than red meat, alcohol and spending time in the Sun.

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9 points

Dammit… I’ve been drinking that shit every day for years. I actually crave the flavor of it.

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15 points
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16 points
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-8 points

Well, I didn’t much before reading the article, but after reading it I don’t trust the FDA at all.

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4 points
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2 points

You don’t trust the FDA after you’ve read that they conclude that aspartame is safe, which is in line with over 100 other countries’ regulatory agencies?

Wait until you read what the FDA has to say about water.

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2 points

I’ve read some of the studies and talked about them with some nurses who’ve done the same. The harm is due to the quantity you consume. The study’s found it cancerous after giving it to mice in high doses, like dozens of 2 liters of diet soda each day. Most people who drink a few cans are going to be fine.

We’ll have to see what the new report says and some people might have to adjust the amount they drink it but I doubt it will say any amount is cancerous.

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55 points

I don’t think you can put “the” before WHO unless Roger Daltrey approves it.

I worry about a lot of the additives used today. Some products will say “no sugar added” but will include some artificial sweetener that you only see in the fine print.

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Which is no sugar. So wheres the Problem?

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-3 points
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15 points

I don’t like it when my tea is sweet :(

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2 points

Them’s fighin’ words

-the entire state of NC

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13 points

So then buy unsweetened tea. We already have a term for things that aren’t sweet.

https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Leaf-Unsweetened-Brewed-Calories/dp/B015Z6WJDY/

I seriously don’t understand why you want the “no sugar added” label to have factually incorrect requirements.

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8 points

No sugar added should mean no sweeteners added, but that’s not the case unfortunately.

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6 points

“Unsweetened” means no sweeteners added. “No sugar added” means no sugars, but maybe other sweeteners.

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24 points

No sugar added usually just means it’s full of sugar originally found in the product. A “no sugar added” apple juice will still have an insanely unhealthy amount of sugar.

I don’t know why you think it should mean no sweeteners. (most) sweeteners are categorically not sugar. If you want something not sweet, the label you’re looking for is “unsweetened”.

Besides, sugar is much worse for you than any artificial sweetener.

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11 points

I worry about the “natural” sugar alternatives. We all know that aspartame is safe, it’s been researched about as extensively as it can be. It only starts to be a concern when you’re drinking 2 dozen diets sodas daily.

But people give “natural” a pass for some reason.

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10 points

Natural is always good, my cereal has natural uranium for a spicy natural alternative to sugar. It’s totally safe.

(For legal purposes, this comment is a joke)

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