Left-handed Complement

MUDGE’S Musings

Coffee is bad for you; oh, wait, no it isn’t. Not so fast, it’s bad. No, it’s good.

Remember that scientific tennis match?

Now the latest medical hacky sack: artificial sweeteners.

Artificial sweeteners are used to assist weight loss; oh, wait, they cause weight gain.

What is wrong with this picture?

Just about everything.

Saccharin may lead to weight gain

by Denise Gellene | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | February 11, 2008

Casting doubt on the benefit of low-calorie sweeteners, research released Sunday reported that rats on diets containing saccharin gained more weight than rats given sugary food.

The study in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience found that the calorie-free artificial sweetener appeared to break the physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, driving the rats to overeat.

Lyn M. Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the latest report, said the study offered a possible explanation for the unexpected association between obesity and diet soda found in recent human studies.

Let me get this straight… because you observe obese people drinking diet soft drinks, it leads you to believe not that they’re responding to their condition by attempting to cut down on sugar. No, you design a study, with nine entire rats, that proves your thesis that drinking the diet sodas causes the obesity.

And you got funding for that?

And newspaper coverage?

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Saccharin may lead to weight gain — chicagotribune.com

In a way, I’m glad to learn about how evil my Diet Mountain Dew is.

The fact that several years ago I lost a substantial amount of weight following the late Dr. Atkins’ recommendations, except for the DMD part (you’ll recall that the tanker loads of Diet Dew load up our storage tank in my basement daily), is I’m sure, a scientific anomaly.

I am in the wrong business, no question about it. I’ve got to find one where the cause/effect ratio is flexible.

Let’s see if I can funding and column inches for research into my current theories:

• People commit crimes because they feel bad when all those bunks at County are empty.
• People stand in line at the unemployment office because otherwise state workers would be lonely, and soon unemployed themselves.
• Mortgage banks loan money to get-me-dones because the real home run is when you buy up all the resulting foreclosures at pennies on the dollar — oh, wait, I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
• Sovereign nations prosecute wars to meet the quarterly financial targets of the defense contractors– oh, wait, I’ll have to get back to you on that one, also.

Anyway, you get the idea. And if you do, tell it to me, and we’ll see if we can’t find someone to fund our research. After all, MUDGE is all about collaboration.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Health, Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.