Just when you thought we had run out of things as a possible explanation behind all the recent sudden and unexplained heart attacks, our friends at the British Medical Journal have come to the rescue. A study published in the BMJ last year in September was titled, “Artificial sweeteners and risk of cardiovascular diseases: results from the prospective NutriNet-Santé cohort.” Thanks goodness that the BMJ is leaving “no rock unturned” in its quest to get to the bottom of the rash of sudden cardiovascular issues.

The researchers studied 100,000 frenchmen and claim to have found an elevated risk of heart attacks among people who consumed more diet sodas and other sources of artificial sweetener. They noted that consuming regular sugar was also “recognised” as a major risk factor for health problems. So, looks no win either way.

Let’s look at the numbers as they’re truly close. For example, 346 sweetener-eating folks had cardiovascular diagnoses during the study, compared to 314 in the non-consumer group. So that’s a difference of 32, certainly not a great amount. To put it in context that’s 346 out of 100,000, as a % that’s 0.00346%

The takeaway for me is what gives, you know with all these studies, are they really helping us clarify things or just muddying up the waters, I’ll let you be the judge of that. If you were someone who just read the headlines, wouldn’t you simply conclude that basically everything including breathing these days causes cardiac issues such as heart attacks. Wouldn’t all this simply make it harder to really pinpoint what’s behind it all, just leaving you with the notion that “who really knows?” Maybe that’s the idea, huh?

Is anyone really surprised that artificial sweeteners might not be good for you? Not sure about you but this isn’t news to me, I kinda knew this a few years back, but looks like it took the “experts” a little longer to figure this one out. I guess that’s the irony of the pharmaceutical interventions, in a quest to explain things away, they’re making scientists delve into all these other less politically well-protected products.

But don’t’ count the “sweetener industry” out just yet, expect them to push back against this narrative. Why, simple, they’ve got just as much a “sweet tooth” when it comes “raking in profits” as big pharma, no matter who get’s cavities!