Just when you thought it was safe

I read
(1) that full fat drinks are better than diet drinks Eh? Full fat soda's ?
and
(2)Quote
But Gavin Partington, director-general of the British Soft Drinks Association, the industry body said: 'Despite their claims, the authors of this observational study admit they found no cause and effect and provide no science-based evidence whatsoever to support their theories.

'In fact, based on the evidence, Public Health England is actively encouraging food and drink companies to use low-calorie sweeteners as an alternative to sugar and help people manage their weight.

Pretty obvious which team he is supporting, eh? PHE strikes again. Now we can expect Drinkwell'#1 to be launched soon?

The study was observational, so carries litte weight in the scheme of things. Not Gold Standard at all.....
I hear a paper wailing in the wilderness, looking for sensation grabbing headline to attract punters, that's all

Squire Fulwood said:

My point is that the title said that people who drink diet drinks are three times more likely to suffer dementia or and stroke and then said, "The researchers are still not sure whether diet drinks are causing strokes or dementia – or whether those who consume them are at higher risk anyway."

It's is quite correct to publish both positive and negative results but not usually in the same paper.

Click to expand...

The title of the paper is, "Sugar- and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and the Risks of Incident Stroke and Dementia - A Prospective Cohort Study" and you can read the full paper by downloading the pdf from here:- http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/04/20/STROKEAHA.116.016027

The title, "Diet drinks triple your risk of stroke and dementia," is the Daily Mail's own. Unfortunately, they are not known for high quality reporting of scientific and medical papers.

The researchers say, "In our community-based cohort, higher consumption of artificially sweetened soft drink was associated with an increased risk of both stroke and dementia." This indicates that the researchers are not saying that drinking artificially sweetened soft drinks causes stroke and dementia. Neither are they saying that it doesn't cause stroke and dementia.

On analysing a break down of the results the researchers found that the people drinking diet drinks were more likely to have diabetes mellitus. They go on to explain, "Because our study was observational, we are unable to determine whether artificially sweetened soft drink intake increased the risk of incident dementia through diabetes mellitus or whether people with diabetes mellitus were simply more likely to consume diet beverages."

What the researchers are saying is:-

• we found an association between drinking diet drinks and suffering stroke or dementia
• because it was an observational study, no-one can say what the cause of the association is
• because it was a self-report study, it may not be as reliable as we would like it to be
• there may be differences in the make up of the 2 groups that we are unaware of so the cause of the association might be nothing to do with diet drinks
• the results might have occured by chance
• more research is needed

It's good practice when writing a scientific paper to state your broad conclusions and then list all the reasons why you might be wrong. Because of the bias in publishing positive or exciting results, researchers may exaggerate their broad conclusions in order to get their paper published. Many published papers are just starting points for further study. By combining lots of small bits of knowledge, eventually a fuller picture can be determined.