Are Pepsi & Coca Cola Paying Up To Make Themselves Look Good?

According to a recent “scientific” research led by Bristol University’s biological psychology Professor Peter Rogers, diet drinks are better than water at helping individuals lose weight.

Yup, go throw away all that water and stock up on Maxx, Zero and Diet versions of your favorite sodas. Absurd as these findings sounds, they do have the university and ILSI Europe backing it.

Clash of the Findings

Bristol’s findings obviously clash with the conclusions of other independent studies that linked weight gain to diet drinks. I mean c’mon! There are people going around making videos of what a neat toilet cleaner sodas are, and here the study wants us to ditch water all together for the fizzy beverage! Sounds a bit off, doesn’t it?

But what many might not know yet is the fact that the study had to angel funders as well. Any guesses? Why of course it was Pepsi and Coca Cola!

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo representatives also worked on the energy balance and eating behavior team where the study’s lead author also happens to “co-incidentally” be its co-chairman.

Ignoring The Rest
Notwithstanding the evaluation of over 5,500 papers, Bristol’s findings were based on just three studies that compared the weight-reducing properties of diet sodas and water.

Additionally, two of these studies found no significant effects in weight loss. One of these two researches, which was sponsored by the American Beverage Association, revealed that consumers of diet drinks had higher chances of losing weight compared to those who drank water.

“To suggest that diet drinks are healthier than drinking water is laughable unscientific nonsense. If you want good science you cannot allow corporate sponsorship of research,” said National Obesity Forum advisor and cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra.

Steadfast Belief

In spite of the obvious contradictions, Bristol stands by their findings. A Bristol representative said that the study was published in a peer-reviewed journal, which specifies that other experts examined the findings.

The university’s spokesperson restated that the study was funded by a variety of bodies, which include the European Union, ILSI Europe and the National Health Service.

The soda-favoring study was published in the International Journal of Obesity journal in November 2015. In the study’s press release, Bristol University did not disclose that the research was industry funded. It clarified that the information was left out due to “reasons of space” in the release.