Caffeine Test

Written By Jill Ettinger

Bad news for diet soda drinkers, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study results found that drinking diet soda daily significantly increases the risk of developing a stroke, heart attack and other serious vascular issues.

Conducted by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center, the study, titled Diet Soft Drink Consumption is Associated with an Increased Risk of Vascular Events in the Northern Manhattan Study, observed the soda habits of more than 2,500 individuals over a 10-year period. According to the research, people who drank diet soda on a daily basis were 43 percent more likely to suffer a stroke or heart attack than those who didnt drink any diet soda, even if pre-existing vascular conditions existed. And those who drank less than than one diet soda per day were also less likely to be at risk of having a stroke or heart attack than those who consumed at least one a day.

The specific causal factor in diet sodas connection to heart attacks and stroke was not clear, despite the correlation, according to study authors. In a statement, researcher Hannah Gardener said, Results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink consumption and vascular outcomes. However, the mechanisms by which soft drinks may affect vascular events are unclear.

Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin, which are commonly found in most diet sodas, have long been connected with health issues including tinnitus, headaches, nervous system disorders and certain types of cancer.

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Data were analysed from 2 564 participants in the NIH-funded Northern Manhattan Study, with researchers examining how often individuals drank soft drinks — diet and regular — and the number of strokes and heart attacks that occurred over a 10-year period.

They found that those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered heart attacks or strokes than those who drank none. Light diet soft drink users, meaning those who drank between one a month and six a week, and those who chose regular soft drinks were not more likely to suffer vascular health problems, according to a press release.

Findings were published on January 26 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

In other recent research, a 10-year study from the University of Texas in the United States revealed that people who drank two or more diet sodas a day gained 70 percent more abdominal fat than those in the study who didnt drink diet soda.

Abdominal fat is a major risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, as well as other chronic conditions, the researchers said.

Another study from the same university found that the artificial sweetener aspartame raised blood sugar levels in mice prone to diabetes.

More thoughts on diet soda and your health here.

The target here is a San Diego-based company called Senomyx. The Senomyx website boasts of the companys ability to deliver novel flavors and flavor enhancers that will give food companies an edge over their competitors.

The company claims it has already discovered hundreds of unique potential new flavor ingredients that could not be discovered using taste tests alone.

But how exactly is Senomyx developing these new flavors? Critics contend one method the company uses employs HEK 293 cells, a line of human embryonic stem cells developed in the 1970s by researchers in the Netherlands.

If true, this isnt our usual picture of embryonic stem cell research. Most of the time were told it will lead to some great achievement, perhaps curing juvenile diabetes or even blindness. But what if, in practice, the focus is on commercial applications? Do we really want companies using embryonic stem cells to develop ingredients to trick our taste buds and make our diet sodas or snack crackers a bit tastier? And if thats what companies are doing, shouldnt we at least know about it?

This type of testing is convenient for the major food companies who partner with Senomyx, but worrisome for consumers. Are our food processors cutting a few ethical corners for a slightly better tasting (and maybe even addicting) soft drink or snack food? How would we know?

The passage of Shorteys bill (or a similar bill in any other state) would force the food giants into the open. Are they or are they not using flavor enhancers developed through the use of embryonic stem cell research? Shortey wants us to know. His critics dont.

Maybe they watched Soylent Green a few too many times as kids.

Art Marmorstein, Aberdeen, is a professor of history at NSU. He can be reached at americannews@aberdeennews.com. The views are his and do not represent Northern State University.

ANCHORAGE – The usual chitchat at coffee stands has taken a somber turn in light of Samantha Koenigs kidnapping.

Coffee lovers are reminded of the incident every time they drive up for their daily caffeine fix; almost every stand around town has flyers up in their windows with information about Koenigs abduction.

At the Kodiak Kup, near 36th and Arctic, baristas say there are surveillance cameras capturing video and audio and all of the girls are now coming to work with a little something extra.

Pepper spray, and we just try to check as much as we can. We lock the doors. We check on each other a lot. I have girls come in here all the time, said barista Jordan Cummings.

Her co-worker Sari Phillips said, I know a lot of girls are scared that work in coffee shops. My family got me pepper spray. I know a lot of girls families are doing that.

Theres also a door with bars on the back of the shop and employees say owners are doing what they can to make sure the inside and outside of the stand are well protected.

Up until this happened a lot of us felt safe. Lighting is really important, weve been trying to light the sides really well, said Cummings.

Baristas at Qwik Cup Espresso near International and C Street are watched by six cameras with audio that their boss can see instantly on her phone, and they keep a can of bear mace by each window.

They say theyre fortunate to have a good group of customers looking out for them and hope getting the word out about Samantha will bring her back home safely.

This shouldnt happen, especially in our small little town at the coffee shop around the corner, thats really scary, said Qwik Cup barista Christina Johnson.

Anchorage Police Detectives investigating the kidnapping say the best thing baristas can do if a person tries to rob a coffee stand is to give the person the money and do whatever they can to stay inside the building.

If youre trying to lose pounds to get to a healthy weight, a new study shows those liquid calories matter, too.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, showed that overweight and obese people who swapped out their caloric drinks for calorie-free options — including, yes, water! — were able to lose four to five pounds over a six-month period. The research will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

If this were done on a large scale, it could significantly reduce the increasing public health problem of obesity, study researcher Deborah Tate, PhD, an associate professor of nutrition and health behavior at UNC Chapel Hill, said in a statement.

Tate and her colleagues looked at the amount of weight lost over half a year among 318 overweight and obese people. The study participants were split up into three groups: one group that switched from caloric drinks to simply water, one group that switched from caloric drinks to diet soda, and one group that did not have to change their drink habits, but who received general information what healthy choices to make for weight loss.

All three of the groups experienced some weight loss and smaller waist sizes during the study period, but researchers found that the people who drank the water and diet soda were the most likely to experience weight loss of 5 percent or more of their body weight.

Even more, researchers found that the water-guzzlers were the most hydrated out of the three groups, and had lower levels of fasting glucose than the group who only received the general information.

Substituting specific foods or beverages that provide a substantial portion of daily calories may be a useful strategy for modest weight loss or weight gain prevention, Tate said in the statement. Beverages may be ideal targets, but keep in mind, the strategy will only work if the person doesnt make up for the lost calories some other way.

SICKENED workers for a domestic abuse charity are counting the cost after raiders ransacked their base.

Two laptops, three mobile phones and even petty cash and collecting tins were stolen from the Redcar town centre office of Survivors of Domestic Abuse (SODA) – situated in a church building.

The charity, set up in 2008, offers a range of services from its base on the first floor of Redcars United Reformed Church in Station Road.

But when staff opened up yesterday morning , they found internal doors smashed, the office ransacked and various items missing.

Its believed the raiders leapt onto a roof before dropping down and smashing a ground floor window in the church hall. They then went upstairs to the SODA office.

Andy Overton, a Cleveland Police officer whos also SODAs business development manager, said they were dismayed to be targeted.

WASHINGTON
In 2010, with concern over obesity and especially childhood obesity on the rise, several states including New York, California, Washington, Kansas and Rhode Island engaged in spirited debates about new taxes on soft drinks. Just as every state has a cigarette tax and every state taxes alcohol, soda taxes seemed as though they might be the new sin tax of choice. So far, though, that hasnt happened.

Momentum for soda taxes has fizzled out. Bills to create them were introduced in about 15 states last year, but, unlike in 2010, few of them gained much traction or much attention. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie made a prominent push for the idea, but it died quickly in a legislative committee. This year, rather than reintroduce the tax, Abercrombie wants a task force to study ways to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

As of the start of 2011, almost half of the states did tax soft drinks at a higher rate than other food products, according to the Bridging the Gap project at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Most of those states, though, merely apply regular sales taxes to soda, while exempting food. Only a few states impose special excise taxes on soda the way they do on cigarettes. No state taxes soda at the levels public health researchers argue would be necessary to substantially reduce their consumption.

Even sales taxes on soda are now difficult to enact. When Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick introduced his new budget in January, he proposed one. His case was that the tax would promote public health, while yielding revenue to relieve strains on Massachusetts budget. But its a case that Patrick, a former Coca-Cola executive, has now made for four years without success.

The chances of moving it through the legislature have been very slim, says Patrick Tigue of Community Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for soda taxes, and this year looks like it promises to be no different.

One reason the momentum has stalled is that all tax increases have been off the table in many states lately. Equally important, the soft drink industry has pushed back aggressively, mobilizing opposition from convenience stores and bottlers, among others.

The excise tax is discriminatory, its regressive, it singles out one industry, says Chris Gindlesperger, director of communications at the American Beverage Association. Its government digging into the grocery cart of people.

The industry has scored some big victories. In 2010, with 60 percent of the vote, Washington state voters repealed a law that raised soda taxes.

Whats less clear is whether the idea has fallen out of favor in a lasting way or whether these are just temporary setbacks. Tigue notes that it took many years for cigarette taxes to gain broad acceptance and that theres a strong commitment to soda taxes in public health circles. Even Gindlesperger expects the issue to come up in more places in 2013, once lawmakers make it through election season.

The study, entitled Choosing Healthy Options Consciously Everyday (CHOICE), is the first controlled trial testing the effectiveness of diet beverages as the primary weight loss strategy in overweight adults.

Professor Tate added: It does help. We learned that both water and diet sodas have some benefits, but they may be different.

People who really like the sweet flavor or carbonation or caffeine of sodas may be more likely to stick with the change if they are drinking diet sodas as opposed to water only.

But drinking water was associated with some other important health improvements like reduced blood sugar.

Professor
Tate said lower blood sugar levels were important because they are
associated with clinical improvements in risk factors for
obesity-related chronic diseases.

The
study also noted that getting people to change just one aspect of their
diets, such as drink beverages, was a manageable goal and easily
sustainable lifestyle change in comparison to strict exercise regimes.

Those of you whove been feeling smug about trading in sugary sodas for diet carbonated beverages might want to brace yourselves: People who drink diet soda every day are 48 percent more likely to have heart attacks and strokes– and to die from those events — than people who dont drink diet sodas, a new long-term study has concluded.

You heard me right … a 48 percent higher risk!

Though the study merely establishes a link between daily diet soda consumption and vascular diseases, and doesnt track cause and effect — nor does it differentiate between types or brands of diet soda — it nevertheless serves as a pretty stark wake-up call for anyone out there who still consumes diet sodas each and every day.

Except, at this point, is anyone really shocked? There have been so many studies, in recent years, highlighting the danger of drinking too much soda, either sugary or artificially sweetened. In my younger days — or perhaps only a few years ago, though it seems like another lifetime — I was a fairly regular consumer of Diet Coke. Not a major-league consumer. I didnt drink it all day, every day, as one of my best college pals used to do. (She used to go through at least a two-liter bottle a day!) But I probably drank a Diet Coke, maybe two, each day.

Even as I drank it (and enjoyed it), I always suspected whatever was in diet beverages was probably none too good for me. But it wasnt until these studies started rolling out fast and furious over the last few years that I completely cut myself off. It was just too hard to justify a habit that — it increasingly became clear — was truly unhealthy. My drop-off was gradual. First I stopped buying diet soda during regular trips to the grocery store, then I stopped picking up the occasional bottle at the corner bodega on a hot day, then I stopped even asking for it when offered a free beverage on an airplane. Now I pretty much never touch the stuff.

I cant say I miss it. And Im probably considerably healthier for my new beverage of choice: ice water — and sometimes, just to switch things up, seltzer with a twist. In fact, I might mosey over to the faucet and pour myself a nice tall glass of H2O right now. Care to join me?

Will this new study affect your diet soda consumption?

Image via Joelk75/Flickr

Diet soda is considered as an effective drink to lose weight. Dieters believe that having a glass of diet soda after every meal burns their body fat or extra consumed calories. Is it true? Do you lose weight by having diet soda or you gain more pounds? Find out…

Diet soda: You gain or lose weight?

1. A meeting conducted by American Diabetes Association showed that diet soda doesnt actually burn body fat but leads to weight gain.

2. Carbonated drink especially diet soda has calories which is unhealthy for the body in the longer run.

3. Artificial sweetener in diet soda can increase blood sugar levels in the body and lead to diabetes in the later ages.

4. It is believed that diet sodas have less calories so it is highly consumed by dieters. The truth is any drink with artificial sweetener is unhealthy and only leads to weight gain. Diet soda has sugar substitutes namely saccharin, sucralose and neotame which leads to weight gain and not weight loss.

5. Sweet drinks can spoil your taste buds. The sweetener in diet soda is addictive and can affect the diet. After weight loss, you might feel like having more sweet dessert which is very rich in calories.

6. Diet soda leads to dehydration. It is an unhealthy substitute for water.

7. Diet soda is unhealthy because it also increases the chances of heart diseases.

Diet soda is therefore unhealthy and you only gain and not lose weight. For few weeks or months you might feel it is effective by burning body fat but gradually you will start putting weight.