Diet Coke is Killing Me!

If I were to believe everything I see on the Internet, I would fear that Diet Coke is killing me.  The most cited article comes from a website called Creative & Healthy Family where we are confronted with the headline:  “Drinking One Diet Drink A Day Can Triple Risk Of Dementia And Strokes.”  It is not dated, shows a picture of a can of Diet Coke and is written by a self-described mom blogger from Florida – so much for scientific credentials.  The scary thing is that it has been shared 410,000 times.

When I see any news like this I am inclined to put down my Diet Coke and investigate.  (It’s called critical thinking.)  I’m especially so inclined when I see the same posting recommending things like a detox bath and detox water recipes, knowing from my past investigations how questionable – no, that’s too polite – how bogus these types of recommendations are.

The site did provide this link to the original study.  It was sponsored by the American Heart Association and published in April of last year.  The first thing to notice is that it never mentions Diet Coke by name.  The summary in the Creative & Family Health page accurately reflects the study abstract, except the part where it states:  “Artificially sweetened soft drink consumption was associated with a higher risk of stroke and dementia.”  But we shouldn’t expect a mom blogger to understand that associated with does not mean causes – or should we?

But the abstract provides a link to the entire study.  One would hope that before jumping to conclusions, a responsible blogger would actually take that additional step.  If we do look further, here is what we find (with emphasis added and typos corrected):

“Limitations of the study include the absence of ethnic minorities, which limits the generalizability of our findings…. Second, the observational nature of our study precludes us from inferring causal links between artificially sweetened beverage consumption and the risks of stroke and dementia. Third, the use of a self-report FFQ [questionnaires] to obtain dietary intake data may be subject to recall bias [and other biases], thus, introducing error into our estimated models. Fourth, although we addressed confounding [outside influences] in numerous ways, we cannot exclude the possibility of residual confounding. Finally, we did not adjust for multiple comparisons meaning that some findings may be attributable to chance.”

They wrap it up with the usual wording that “future research is needed.”  This doesn’t sound as definitive as the mom blogger portrayed it.

The main issue is not whether Diet Coke is killing me; it's the rapid spread of misinformation. People look through the Internet for the latest study that reinforces their preconceptions, especially about health and wellness; and after doing a half-baked job of research, they print an attention-getting headline simply to get likes and re-posts.  Others aid them by passing the post along to their equally credulous friends and followers.  Then, instead of practicing moderation, they are inclined to totally replace artificial sweeteners with natural sweeteners.  And you don’t have to look far on the Internet to find faults with these, too, as this Economist story points out.  But natural sweeteners sound so much more natural than artificial sweeteners.

Wouldn’t it be more useful to focus on smoking, excessive alcohol, over-eating and high blood pressure, things that are really killing people; than to keep trying to invent new, more exotic nutritional enemies?  But those ordinary warnings don’t inspire the sense of panic needed to get likes and re-posts.  As a next step a few fanatics demand that everyone adopt their view, calling for product bans or boycotts or attacking opposite viewpoints and demeaning the people who hold them.

These half-truths, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and sloppy reporting cause people to make unnecessary changes and form false, negative opinions of products or people.  They can damage companies and individual reputations without any accountability on the part of the writer.  Without responsibility on one side and critical thinking on the other, social media can pose a serious threat to everyone.