riginally Posted by
didjamatic 
Diet Cola can't give you Type 2 DiabetesWell, in that case, I doubt a weeks worth of cola would give you type 2 Diabetes either...
Soda is probably the single most unhealthy thing I indulge in the most, but I've yet suffer ill effect from even the somewhat copious amounts I consume probably because I am in good health otherwise overall. And I am not convinced that this is a cause/effect of soda alone at any rate. The worst problem with so many of these studies is that they draw conclusions from data without considering additional linked factors which may be more directly related to the issue. I'm willing to bet that no "biggest loser contestant" is in that contest because soda alone undid them.
Consider this: A study claims that black or hispanic folks are more likely to be susceptible to disease x or y and uses a racial risk index to determine insurance costs; however, in reality, the actual linked cause is not biological but cultural- they just don't know it because they didn't bother to compare data against black or hispanic people who were raised in a caucasion or chinese household that would have negated or mitigated the statistical relationship they had previously encountered. The researchers and their sponsors will say this is still okay because the likelihood is that race and culture go hand in hand, so the index is still valid, but I think that is also a false relationship because there is no telling what other conditions are directly linked to each other in a dependent chain.
Once this dependency is set even one iteration away from the end result, it becomes exponentially more likely to assign causality to an indirect factor. I find it shocking how much "research" is done as if all things exist in isolation in order to back a theory. Sometimes the most learned folk are the ones who are completely unable to see the forest for all the damn trees.
For that matter, then my own attitudes are subject to the same scrutiny. Perhaps the artificial sweeteners are not the factor which is the link to cancer but instead it is a by product of a body's reaction to unnatural stimulus - perhaps the body prepares to intake calories because the sweetness/taste triggers the process but problems arise in the balance of body chemistry because there is only a 0 calorie diet drink to process and so ill effects occur when the body fails to render sustenance from digestion. If this triggers cell death instead of cell growth, then the body may react by immediately producing more growth to compensate (like how pruning a plant can revive it to renewed vigorous growth) but there is still a negative return on the process without the input of calories so instead it consumes itself to feed the machine >>>ergo cancer because the body processed the intake of calories where there were none to process due to being triggered by the sweet taste, while the artificial sweetener itself could have been consumed along with calories and not been problematic.
On that note, if your concern is the caffeine itself and not the beverage, why not just switch to decaf coffee?
