Fight cancer - drink up your Pepsi Max (or Diet Coke if you must)

TCS Daily - Those Dirty Rats

A fascinating article above about a fairly recent study on aspartame safety, which apparently got a mention in the New York Times earlier this month.

I take it that the NYT indicated that the study meant there was still some lingering doubt about aspartame and cancer. But the article above points out the defects of the study, and concludes on this surprising note:

Here's what's even stranger: the rats with the highest survival rates at 104 and 120 weeks, at 55% and about 29% respectively, were the rats that ate the most aspartame – the equivalent of 1,750 cans of diet soda a day. And the longest living rat of all consumed the equivalent of 175 cans a day. In short, the control rats died first; the heavy aspartame consumers lived longest.

Looks like if you want to increase your odds of living a long life, be prepared to burp.

Update: this post at Captain's Quarters gives more background on what the Times article claimed.