Like so many things in life, one entity, item, or thing gets blamed for many of the ills that human beings suffer. Diet soda/soft drinks is one such entity, and this time it is an association with dementia. “Frequent consumption of diet soda has been tied to an increased risk for dementia.” In fact, researchers have shown “a fourfold increase in dementia among dementia-free individuals who consumed more than one diet soda per day.” BUT if they excluded patients who were obese or diabetic, the association no longer existed. That confuses the issue because it leads you to wonder if diabetes and obesity were more responsible for dementia than consuming diet soda.
Drinking diet soda “is not very healthy, and consuming more of it is not an effective way to decrease cardiometabolic risk.” Soda consumption is also linked to vascular risk and the incidence of stroke and dementia is increased among people who consumed artificially sweetened beverages, which includes diet soda. Sugar-sweetened beverages have been blamed for cognitive disorders (in a 2017 study), but the same conclusion has not been found for artificially sweetened beverages.
The data cited in the reference below are thought-provoking at best, because daily or greater consumption of soda, regular and diet, occurred in only 4.8% and 2.3%, respectively, of participants more than once a day. Diet soft drink consumption was linked to significantly increased risk for dementia if they drank more than one diet soda per day than for those who drank one or fewer per day. Again, if diabetics and the obese were excluded from the study, the increased risk fell apart. The whole conclusion may be in doubt, and diet soda may be let off the hook. It may be that those with dementia were an unhealthy bunch to begin with, and soda, diet or regular, had no role in the problem. Science is still investigating a connection, but they admit they don’t know, yet, and may never.
Reference: Brauser D. Frequent Diet Soda Intake Linked to Fourfold increased Dementia Risk. Medscape 2026 January 30.
