Diet soda article, what exactly is being said here?

[shawmutt]

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/stories/2008/feb/19/sciencehealth-study-links-diet-soda-health-issues/

I haven't read a more confusing article in a while. Are they actually saying that diet soda causes anything at all?

[Seren_]

From what I understand, they only say there is correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome.

Correlation does not imply causation.

Obligatory xkcd reference : http://xkcd.com/552/

[HansMustermann]

Sorta, although _some_ kind of causation is suggested by that experiment with the rats they mention. The rats which were fed stuff sweetened with saccharine ended up eating more and getting fatter.

I can accept that the causation can go the other way around for humans (e.g., the guys who already eat too much drink those diet sodas), but rats (A) aren't smart enough for that, and (B) had no choice over which group they're put in. So that stuff might actually make one hungrier, for whatever reason.

And for shawmutt, basically the translation to plain english is this: people who drink diet sodas gain more weight, have higher cholesterol, etc. Not just than people who don't drink sodas, but even compared to people who drink normal sodas with sugar. Contrary to what "metabolic syndrome" might sound like, they're not saying that it changes your metabolism, but that you plain old end up eating more.

Note however that another story links normal sodas with other problems, like muscle problems due to lack of potassium. Not entirely surprising. If a enough of your calories come from stuff that's entirely devoid of minerals (e.g., from sugar instead of from a steak), you end up lacking those minerals in your system.