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Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

time.com

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Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#141

Post by mikeyouse »

Scientist007 wrote: post #128
mikeyouse wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can address #2; > If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision? Every science article posted on HN gets the exact same treatment where well-intentioned but scientifically ignorant posters fill the comment section with drive-by posts saying "Correlation != Causation"…

Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Your confidence, to the contrary, may be borne of ignorance. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...

> Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded.

Ugh. Another blanket statement that in no way reflects the actual paper in question.

From your own source he recommends larger studies, cross-team work clear pre-trial hypotheses, and study-registration.

Guess what?

This n=5,300 study was performed by researchers at UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan, they published their intention to run the study prior to running it with a hypothesis that was partially proved wrong (they expected shortened telomeres with noncarbonated SSBs as well as with sugary soda).

What exactly is your issue with this study? Or do you just reject science in general.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#142

Post by johnward »

Lambdanaut wrote: post #100
johnward wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not the sugar it's the caffeine. Also the taste and bubbles. But caffeine is a physical addiction that is literally painful to break.

How about switching over to tea or coffee? Both lack sugar and are full of anti-oxidants.

I've tried but they taste awful. Even if I get one of those sugary carmel chocolate starbucks things I can't get past the awful taste of the coffee. Ultimately I need to just quit caffeine but every time I end up back on the wagon.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#143

Post by Scientist007 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #141
Scientist007 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Your confidence, to the contrary, may be borne of ignorance. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...

> Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Ugh. Another blanket statement that in no way reflects the actual paper in question. From your own source he recommends larger studies, cross-team work clear pre-trial hypotheses, and study-registration. Guess what? This n=5,300 study was performed by researchers at UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan, they published…

Guess what?

Given that all observational studies are essentially exercises in variable adjustment and little else, it seems reasonable to exercise extreme scepticism.

Some people you just can't reach, I guess. Believe what you will.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#144

Post by mikeyouse »

Scientist007 wrote: post #132
mikeyouse wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their confidence intervals include 0 or nearly-0, their P-values are at or near the .05 cutoff They ran two different models and found across all cohorts (correcting for age, race, BMI, marital status, smoking, history, physical activity levels, and education) that those who regularly consumed sugar-sweetened soda had statistically shorter telomeres -- and that this affect is correlated with the amount of consumpti…

The "joke" points out an important flaw.

It really doesn't though.

Something tells me green-account "Scientist007", that you might not actually be a scientist.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#145

Post by anigbrowl »

danielki wrote: post #98
anigbrowl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Time article is actually a very dry summary of the study's key finding, written in colloquial but not sensational language. It also has a link to the study in the very first sentence. I found the full text very easily: http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a... The poster above could easily have satisfied his/her own curiosity on this point. 'Did researchers control for [extremely obvious thi…

Don't be a dick. I was asking a legitimate question because I was curious about the research methodology and, while the study linked in the article had a price tag of $22, the person I replied to seemed to have access to it. Thanks for finding the full text, I will read it when I get home from work (which is why I didn't have time to search for the full text).

I'm pretty sure the time I spent searching for it was less than the time it took you to write this comment. I did one Google search and it was the top result.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#146

Post by EricDeb »

igorgue wrote: post #97
geoka9 wrote: post #9

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

I do both, like a maniac. I'd say coke (I drink exclusively diet coke) is equally as addictive as cigarettes. But the physical dependency is a bit more "dangerous" on coke, with cigarettes there's options to beat that (either have a puff of pot or your e-cig). I don't think there's anything that can kill my craving of diet coke as much as diet coke.

Pretty sure nicotine is substantially more addictive than diet soda.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#147

Post by Symbiote »

codyb wrote: post #95
novalis78 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the other weird thing is how hard it is to find carbonated seltzer in America... in Western Europe you basically trip over container loads of the stuff at every supermarket's entrance. Makes you wonder if carbonated seltzer is what might help change North American soda consumption habits

Really? Where in America? In New York I've never had any problem finding seltzer. My parents buy it every time they go to the supermarket in upstate New York. I'm trying to think of how common it is in corner stores. I can't say I've ever looked particularly hard for it. I used to keep my refrigerator in Buffalo stocked with the stuff though. It sure is refreshing. Thankfully my work provides free cans of seltzer whi…

See if you can find squash/cordial, lemon flavour is usually best: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_%28drink%29

When my parents took us on holiday to America my little brother refused to drink either plain water or fizzy drinks, but we found orange squash in the British section of a large supermarket.

As Wikipedia says, it's the default drink for British children. Adults who drink it probably pick a nicer product; my manager keeps a bottle of elderflower cordial in the cupboard.

I don't like making generalisations about Europe, but carbonated water is sold in every shop in Europe that sells bottled water. In some countries (e.g. Georgia), in smaller shops, you will only find carbonated water. In Germany it's what you get if you order "mineral water", you have to specify "still mineral water".

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#148

Post by vonmoltke »

anigbrowl wrote: post #67
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they saw 'aging' with sugar-sweetened soda, the opposite with fruit juice, and no significant difference with diet sodas or non-carbonated sugary sodas. What compounds in soda are most likely causing this? If they're not seeing the results in fruit juice, its not sugar causing the damage.

There's more than one kind of sugar. Juices have both fructose and glucose; the former is more likely to be stored by the liver, the latter is deployed more widely around the body. Soda has much higher levels of fructose than glucose, thanks to all that high-fructose corn syrup that has become so popular with food manufacturers. There seems to be mounting evidence that high fructose intake is correlated with increase…

Dr. Lustig's views are not consistent with mainstream scientific opinions on the subject.[1] I would be careful about using his work to justify things.

[1] http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-the-movie-fed-up-ma...

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#149

Post by pkroll »

ssmoot wrote: post #35
ep103 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its generally understood that most artificial sweeteners are seen as sugar by the body, but don't actually get turned into sugar in the bloodstream. So it makes sense that it might contribute to diabetes (your body digests it like sugar), but not aging (which is accelerated by sugar in the bloodstream). I believe the whole point of coke 0 is that it doesn't use an artificial sweetener? But don't quote me on t…

I could be wrong, but I thought Coke Zero was just the name for Diet Coke with Sucralose instead of Aspartame.

As the others have said, Coke Zero contains aspartame. However, it also contains acesulfame potassium which is another sweetener, so it may have a little less aspartame than Diet Coke. (The effect of multiple sweeteners is generally greater than an equivalent larger dose of one... or so I have... read. Maybe. In something somewhere. No promises.)

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#150

Post by mikeyouse »

pc2g4d wrote: post #92
mikeyouse wrote: post #3

The key results from the paper: After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed betwe…

Fruit juice may be good for your telomeres, but there are plenty of other reasons to be suspicious of it---"bro-science" it is not. For example, Google "fruit juice and obesity" or see http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/03/09/shout-it-fro... And besides, who says a "bro" can't science? ;)

> And besides, who says a "bro" can't science? ;)

Very fair point. I guess I've been exposed to too many paleo "all sugar is equally evil" bros lately. They can certainly science with the rest of them.

Hell, Kary Mullis won a Nobel for inventing PCR which he practically did from his surf board. Although his later absurdity^ re: AIDS / Astrology / Climate Change might give some more credence to keeping the bros out of science ;-)

^Absurdity not absurdism

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