[sanflan]

Wow, did I hate reading this study. When they studied three thousand women over 11 years who drank 2 diet soda's a day they were 2X as likely to have kidney disease. What is left to eat and drink.... I just hate giving up something I enjoy so much. Has anyone else read this? They don't know if it is the soda or the diet part that effected the kidneys. For now I am going with drinks that are diet but not soda, but who knows for sure?

[ShottleBop]

"Twice as likely" means what increase in absolute risk?

[Mystae]

I can totally understand your frustration. While I haven't read this, in particular, I have done quite a bit of reading about artificial sweeteners, and because of that reading, have basically cut out nearly all artificial sweeteners from my diet. Which means, since I'm doing low(er) carb, that that means no soda. It took me about a year to wean myself off of Diet Coke, let me tell you. That was a hard habit to kill. However, I love coffee, so a lot of what I've lost in DC has been somewhat made up with coffee... Although I've cut my caffiene consumption in about half, too.

One of the biggest benefits I've seen, though, is my water consumption. I now drink a minimum of 40 ounces of water a day... Which isn't quite to my standards, but is MUCH more than it used to be. Hopefully at some point in the future, I'll get more disciplined about drinking the 60-80 ounces a day I *want* to be drinking.

But yeah, it is kind of crappy sometimes to look in the fridge and know that my drink choices are basically: water, coffee or tea. Sometimes milk, and unless I'm hypo, never juice. But to me, it's worth it not to have all that stuff (which may or may not affect me for the worse) inside me any more... And it took me a LONG time to come to this decision (several years and one constantly nagging - but well intentioned - mother :O). For you, it may not be worth it.

I was in a place recently where I didn't have a choice and had to get a DC, and it was the first time I'd had one in well over 6 months, and let me tell you, at this point, they couldn't pay me to drink the things! I don't know how I ever got used to that terrible airplane-fuel aftertaste in the first place...

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

[cyberus]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

"Twice as likely" means what increase in absolute risk?

(IMNSHO)

It means someone with an axe to grind data-mined some statistical model somewhere and pulled a number out of their arse

[HuskerMychal]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

"Twice as likely" means what increase in absolute risk?

Anytime you double a number it can not be good.

And I HATE this new test, I am a diet pop fiend, Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet coke

[retired60]

I refuse to give them up. Diabetics are not normal people as far as health, twice as likely for heart trouble, etc, etc.I will take my chances and enjoy them.

[Grunch]

Do you have a link to the study?

edit: I found this, didn't read yet. http://www.naturalnews.com/025582_so..._soda_pop.html

[Grunch]

It doesn't say diet soda, just says soda pop.

[Grunch]

And it says that the problem is likely sugar:

But there are some clues. "People are consuming too much sugar. The problem with high fructose corn syrup (in soda pop) is that it contributes to over consumption. It's cheap, it has a long shelf life and it allows you to buy a case of soda for less than $10," stated Shoham, who headed the research team.

[Grunch]

News Release Detail

However, researchers did not find an elevated risk for men, or for people who drink diet soda, said lead researcher David Shoham of Loyola University Health System.

[NewdestinyX]

It's all just a bunch of scare tactic nonsense so many times - depending on the 'funder' of the study. These studies are so 'poorly' executed sometimes. We're all going to die of failing health one day. Hey - if you can make some changes and hedge your bets -- do it.. More power to you. But when the frikin' New England journal of Medicine comes out with 4 studies in 2 years first saying wine in bad then good then bad then good..... I get a little nervous that I can't trust ANY of these studies. The same thing has happened with coffee and milk chocolate in the last 5 years... YEs, good! No, bad!!! I thought they called it 'science' - not 'art'..

[bunbury]

Originally Posted by Grunch

And it says that the problem is likely sugar:

High fructose corn syrup. Again. And PLoS carries weight.

[jillybean]

I'm not giving up diet soda. I do drink caffeine-free and non-cola types whenever possible. Caffeine can be slightly dehydrating, and the phosphoric acid in cola-types sodas (diet or regular cokes, pepsis, etc.) can leech calcium from your body. So, I only keep diet orange soda, Sprite Zero, and diet ginger ale in my house - all caffeine free and phosphoric acid free. I do drink Diet Pepsi if I'm eating out at a place that has it (don't like Diet Coke), but that's not too often since most places don't carry Pepsi products.

[Hammer]

Thirty years ago I heard that drinking soda gave you an increased risk of kidney problems. A co-worker developed kidney stones and his doctor told him to stop drinking so many colas and switch to water. The water is what is needed to prevent kidney stones, and the various acids in cola helped to create kidney stones. If this is true, then just drink a bottle of water after you drunk a bottle of diet soda....that should equal things out.

The thing is, when it says that drinking diet sodas doubles your chances of having kidney problems, what does that mean? I'm asking that because I had heard on the news that the incidence of rabies in my area, increased by 200% over last year. That got me worried....till I found out that last year there was one case of rabies, and this year there were three....so a 200% increase, but still only three cases.

[ShottleBop]

The reports I found online (Googling "kidney disease diet soda") refer to a study that has been/is being presented at a conference on nephrology here in San Diego, at UCSD, this week. It was diet soda, specifically:

The second study looked at the association between sugar- and artificially-sweetened beverages and kidney function decline in the same group of women. The researchers found an association between two or more servings per day of artificially sweetened soda and a two-fold increased risk of faster kidney function decline. There was no connection between sugar-sweetened beverages and kidney function decline.

The association between artificially sweetened beverages and kidney function decline persisted after Lin and colleague Dr. Gary Curhan accounted for other factors, such as age, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, physical activity, caloric intake and cardiovascular disease.

Further study is needed to better understand how artificial sweeteners influence kidney function decline, the researchers said.

The studies were to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology, in San Diego.

The study others are referring to was released in February, and did refer to soda pop generally:

For the study just published in PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed journal of science and medical research produced by the Public Library of Science, Loyola scientists examined data from a representative sample of 9,358 U.S. adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey( NHANES). The NHANES participants gave urine samples and also filled out questionnaires about their dietary habits.

Women who said they drank two or more sodas in the 24 hours before the urine test were 1.86 times more likely to have albuminuria, an excess amount of a protein called albumin, in their urine. This was a warning flag to the researchers because healthy kidneys should filter out large molecules like albumin. That means an excess amount of albumin can be a sign of early kidney damage.