ArcaMax

Roughly one-fifth of American adults consume diet sodas on a given day. The market is huge -- more than $5 billion globally -- with dozens of choices, including whether to swig a "diet" or "zero-sugar" beverage.

So what's the difference since neither actually contains sugar?

Diet drinks replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, most often aspartame (marketed as Equal and NutraSweet). The scientific evidence on whether aspartame is bad for your health is unclear, with the particular exception of people who have a genetic condition called phenylketonuria or PKU.

Aspartame contains an amino acid known as phenylalanine. People with PKU cannot metabolize phenylalanine and, undetected and unaddressed, the condition can cause significant health problems. For these people, treatment means simply avoiding foods and beverages with phenylalanine, which is why all diet sodas must sport a PKU warning on the side of cans and containers.

Zero-sugar sodas are sometimes marketed as "healthier" than diet sodas, but they also contain aspartame. The major difference is in the lesser amount and additional other ingredients. For example, Coke Zero also includes the sweetener acesulfame potassium. It also has less caffeine than Diet Coke.

Mostly, though, it's semantics, which may be important to consumers keen to lose the sugar and the word "diet" from their diet.

Body of Knowledge

The eyes of a baby do not produce tears until the baby is 6 to 8 weeks old.

Get Me That, Stat!

The leading causes of death in 2022, according to the latest National Vital Statistics Report, were diseases of heart; malignant neoplasms (cancer); accidents (unintentional injuries); COVID-19; cerebrovascular diseases; chronic lower respiratory diseases; Alzheimer's disease; diabetes mellitus; nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (diseases of the kidneys); and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

These causes accounted for 72.3% of all deaths occurring in the United States in 2022.

Stories for the Waiting Room

Medical authorities advise that people spend no more than 10 minutes at a time sitting on a toilet. It's a problem of physics. Sitting on a standard toilet compresses the buttocks and places your, uh, anatomy in a lower position that increases pressure on blood vessels in the area. Doing so for extended periods of time can cause these vessels to become enlarged and engorged with blood, increasing the risk of hemorrhoids.

Fortunately, you can read this entire article in less than 10 minutes.

Doc Talk

Allodynia: Pain resulting from something that is not normally painful, such as a light touch

Mania of the Week

Ludomania: An obsession with gambling (informally known as chronic lose-o-mania)

Food for Thought

Guar gum is extracted from the guar or cluster bean. It is commonly added to some gluten-free foods to mimic the texture of bread. It can also be found in yogurt, ketchup, cheese and meat.

Because it's high in fiber, guar gum is sometimes used to treat constipation, diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome. Some research suggests it may also lower cholesterol and blood sugar.

In very large amounts, however, guar gum can cause gas and bloating. In the 1990s, the Food and Drug Administration labeled a diet pill with extremely high levels of guar gum "hazardous."

Best Medicine

The worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades.

Observation

"Worry is as useless as a handle on a snowball." -- American author Mitzi Chandler

Medical History

This week in 1794, Elizabeth Hogg Bennett became the first woman in the U.S. to successfully give birth to a child by a caesarean section. Her husband, Dr. Jesse Bennett of Edom, Virginia, performed the operation, though he had no anesthetic to give her.

Another local doctor was asked to assist but declined, citing the excessive risk. Instead, Dr. Bennett enlisted two field hands to hold the mother on a wooden table while he performed the operation.

Though this case was the first of its kind in the U.S., the history of the caesarean operation has been traced as far back as ancient Chinese etchings that depict the procedure on apparently living women. Roman law under Julius Caesar decreed that all women who were dead or dying must be cut open to save the child.

Sum Body

Eight strange and dubious hygiene practices from the past.

1. Before the invention of toilet paper, corn cobs were a common method, continuing in some locations into the 20th century.

2. Ancient Greeks and Romans used pottery shards for the same purpose.

3. Ancient Egyptians used ostrich eggshells as a key ingredient in making deodorants. They also created underarm deodorant balls consisting of congealed porridge mixed with incense and crushed carob pods.

4. Apparently tireless sniffers, the Egyptians also made some of the earliest breath mints, combining honey, frankincense and myrrh, drying the paste and forming it into pellets.

5. Ancient Romans, meanwhile, concocted a mouthwash composed of urine and goat milk. They also used urine as a laundry detergent, thanks to its ammonia content.

6. Some Europeans during the 14th century thought sipping urine helped keep the bubonic plague away (maybe because it kept everyone else at a distance).

7. To combat head lice, medieval docs advised drinking a mixture of cheese whey and vinegar.

8. In the early 20th century, the disinfectant Lysol was promoted as a safe and effective personal cleanser for females. (It isn't.)

Curtain Calls

On Oct. 2, 1920, King Alexander of Greece, who ruled the country briefly in the early 20th century, was strolling the grounds of his estate when he noticed a fight between his dog and a palace steward's domesticated Barbary macaque, a species of monkey.

While attempting to separate the two animals, another macaque attacked the king and bit him deeply on the leg and torso. Workers in the palace chased the monkeys away, and the king had his wounds bandaged and cleaned but not cauterized.

By evening, sepsis had set in. Doctors debated whether to amputate the king's leg, but no one wanted to be held liable for such a drastic medical decision. Alexander's condition worsened, and he passed away from sepsis 18 days later.

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To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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