Maybe it’s not so cut and dried after all

Artificial Sweeteners Contributing Directly to Diabetes Risk

The article really should say it all, but here are some quotes:

The findings from two new studies have prompted US health scientists to state that the promotion of diet sodas and aspartame sweeteners as healthy alternatives may be “ill-advised.”

And:

In the first, participants had their height, weight, waist circumference and diet soda intake recorded over a 10-year period. The results were adjusted for waist circumference, diabetes status, leisure-time physical activity level, neighborhood of residence, age and smoking status at the beginning of each interval, as well as sex, ethnicity and years of education.

The findings showed that diet soft drink users, as a group, experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference compared with non-users. Frequent users, who said they consumed two or more diet sodas a day, experienced waist circumference increases that were 500 percent greater than those of non-users.

And the money quote:

Summarizing the findings from the two studies, Helen P. Hazuda, chief of the institute’s Division of Clinical Epidemiology, said; “[the data] suggest that the promotion of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised. They may be free of calories but not of consequences.”

That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?