Via PRWatch: “If you are wondering why Americans are losing the wars on cancer, heart disease and diabetes, you might look at the funding sources of the major public health groups,” writes Corp-Focus. Look at the deal the American Diabetes Association (ADA) cut “with candy and soda pop maker Cadbury Schweppes.”

Cadbury Schweppes kicks in a couple million dollars to the ADA. In return, the company gets to use the ADA label on its diet drinks – plus the positive publicity generated by the deal. Cadbury makes Dr. Pepper and such nutritious treats as Cadbury’s Cream Egg.


The ADA label will only appear on Cadbury’s “healthier” diet items. But, are diet sodas, for example, safer? More below:
Back in the 1980s, I took my daughter and myself to a brainy young female physician who’d graduated from the University of Washington’s renowned family medicine specialty program. She repeatedly advised me not to drink diet sodas, and especially not to allow my young daughter to drink the stuff. She said, “I can feel the change in my brain after I drink a Diet Coke.” She’d studied the literature on the effects of ingredients in diet drinks on the brain. There are also anecdotal reports on the ‘net.


From News Target:

Carol Simontacchi: The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children


“One liter of an aspartame-sweetened beverage can produce about fifty-six milligrams of methanol. When several of these beverages are consumed in a short period of time (one day, perhaps), as much as two hundred fifty milligrams of methanol are dumped into the bloodstream, or thirty-two times the EPA limit.”


“What may happen, in the face of day-to-day, continuously high levels of sodium in the diet and the bloodstream, is that we experience a type of acute hypernatremia—not enough to kill us or cause the myelin sheath to lose its integrity, but enough to keep our sodium potassium pump slightly dysregulated and throw off the electrical system of the brain…. Americans drink soft drinks that are often loaded with more sodium and which further unbalance the mineral stores.”


From a Raw Story exclusive report:

Aspartame, … has been documented to have over 92 different side effects ranging from seizures to slurred speech. Aspartame, via methanol poisoning, mimics the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, when individuals experiencing these symptoms discontinued use of aspartame products the symptoms dissipated. According to Dr. Wurtman, a professor of neuroendocrinology at MIT, an individual who consumes four to five aspartame sweetened drinks per day for a prolonged period is putting themselves at the risk of affecting their brain’s neurotransmitters. This interference can result in irritability, moodswings, anxiety, insomnia, migraine headaches and depression.


While the risks of aspartame appear great, the product in diet sodas may also be responsible for promoting weight gain — as counterintuitive as it may seem. The sweet taste of diet soda creates a cephalic phase response that causes the liver to prepare to receive sugar. When no sugar appears, the liver prompts the body to eat, which can result in increased hunger and over eating. Diet sodas also contain caffeine. Caffeine consumption can cause overindulgence when the body confuses the hunger and thirst sensations.


I’m not a scientist, and can’t tell you if these articles are the product of serious academic research. But, coupled with my own physician’s concerns, the evidence adds up against diet sodas and foods.


Corp-Focus writes further:

Just this week [February 2005], the Journal of Pediatrics published a study placing a
good part of the blame for childhood diabetes on soda pop and sugared drinks.


The study found that an average can of soda contains 165 calories and
that the typical teen consumes approximately two 12-ounce cans of soft drinks per day — that’s 20 teaspoons of sugar.


Anyone who knows teenagers knows that this is true — they drink a ton of soda.


The Cadbury/ADA deal came under immediate fire from Gary Ruskin at the Portland, Oregon-based Commercial Alert.


Ruskin wants the ADA to return what he considers to be a “corrupt
contribution” back to Cadbury Schweppes.


“Maybe the American Diabetes Association should rename itself the
American Junk Food Association,” Ruskin said. “What will it do for an
encore? Start selling candy bars for M&M/Mars?”


The ADA, reports Corp-Focus, “takes big money from a wide range of drug and food companies,” including “Cadbury, Kraft Foods, J.M. Smucker Company, General Mills, Inc., and H.J. Heinz Company.”


And, says Corp-Focus’s writing team, a doctor friend recently “received a carton of 100 samples of Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal.”


The carton was accompanied by a letter from Michael McBurney, who was identified as senior director of nutrition and regulatory affairs.


But since his name and signature were placed directly over the name
“American Heart Association” — Dr. Hahn thought that McBurney was with the Heart Association.


McBurney is actually with Kellogg’s.


The thing that surprised Dr. Hahn was that Kellogg’s or the Heart
Association expected him to give out the cereal, which contains trans
fats, to his patients.

[……………….]


[The AHA] said that it certified Kellogg’s Smart Start because it meets the AHA guidelines, including containing less than three grams of fat per serving.


“When it comes to Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal, the nutritional label
states that it contains zero grams of trans fat, which means that it
contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat,” said AHA’s Carrie Thacker.


Wow — zero is the same as less than .5.