Aspartame causes glucose and insulin spikes in animal studies, which accelerates plaque buildup in susceptible mice by increasing adhesion molecules that attract immune cells to artery walls. While epidemiological data links artificial sweeteners to heart disease, the research doesn't prove Diet Coke causes it.
on aspartame and cardiovascular disease. And what they showed in mice, and also they had some monkey data, was that it can spike glucose and insulin. And what this did was increase plaque progression in susceptible mice. However, the mechanism had to do with increasing certain molecules on the endothelial lining. Basically, there were like baseball gloves for rolling around immune cells, which the baseball that sucked them into the arterial lining and caused plaque to grow. So there is a very clear physiological model with data in mice and primates showing how this could negatively impact heart health in conjunction with associational data saying artificial sweetener intake is associated with cardiovascular disease. Does this prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that diet Coke causes heart disease? No. But you shouldn't need those data to incorporate the existing literature, which is of concern, into your individual algorithm of whether or not you want to make the decision.
