A new study by Yale University researchers found people who drank diet soda after beating colon cancer were less likely to see a recurrence and less likely to die than those who didn’t drink diet soda.
Of the 1,018 patients researchers analyzed, those who drank one or more 12-ounce artificially sweetened drink per day saw a 46 percent improvement in risk of cancer recurrence or death compared to those who didn’t drink such beverages.
“Artificially sweetened drinks have a checkered reputation in the public because of purported health risks that have never really been documented,” said the study’s senior author, Charles S. Fuchs, director of Yale Cancer Center. “Our study clearly shows they help avoid cancer recurrence and death in patients who have been treated for advanced colon cancer and that is an exciting finding.”
Risk factors for colon cancer include obesity and poor diet. Researchers attribute half the benefit of diet drinks to patients substituting diet sodas for drinks full of sugar. Drinking a diet beverage cuts that extra sugar from a patients’ diet, reducing that particular risk factor.
“While the association between lower colon cancer recurrence and death was somewhat stronger than we suspected, the finding fits in with all that we know about colon cancer risk in general,” Fuchs said. “Factors such as obesity, sedentary lifestyle, a diet linked to diabetes — all of which lead to an excess energy balance — are known risk factors.”
Sugary drinks and diets high in sugar have been shown in dozens of studies to contribute to obesity in the general population.
There is no consensus on how bad artificially sweetened soda is for the general population, but a study released in April lead by a researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University found that artificial sweeteners negatively affected energy metabolism and the processing of fats in rats. This could contribute to obesity in people.
“It is not as simple as ‘stop using artificial sweeteners’ being the key to solving overall health outcomes related to diabetes and obesity,” lead researcher Brian Hoffmann said in a news release. “As with other dietary components, I like to tell people moderation is the key if one finds it hard to completely cut something out of their diet.”
In a separate cancer study, unrelated to soda, Yale researchers found cancer patients using complementary treatments — such as yoga, acupuncture, homeopathy and others — alongside traditional treatments, like chemotherapy, were more likely to die than those only using traditional treatments.
Researchers attribute this finding to the willingness of people using complementary treatments to refuse a component of traditional treatment.
“There is a great deal of confusion about the role of complementary therapies,” said lead author Skyler Johnson, chief resident in radiation oncology at Yale School of Medicine. “Although they may be used to support patients experiencing symptoms from cancer treatment, it looks as though they are either being marketed or understood to be effective cancer treatments.”
