1. It is very true that diet drinks do raise methanol levels in the body. I'm not sure whether it matters if the drink is at 86 degrees or not, since the body will raise the temperature to 98.6.
2. It is also true that the body has methanol in it is as a normal byproduct of metabolic processes. Unclear to me whether all these claims could be true.
3. Probably a good idea not to drink this shit. One could make an equally impressive case against softdrinks, artifical sugars or otherwise, on the basis of what the phosophorous does to bones. I think the epidemic of osteoporosis is due in no small part to this. It doesn't matter age you are when you drink it: if you drink it as a teen you will interfere with calcium buildup which constitutes the "main reserve" of calcium throughout your life. Supplmenets taken in later years tend to slow decline rather than re-build lost bone.
4. The post on methanol nonetheless had a kind of "conspiracy theory" quality to it, i.e., whereby a multitude of sins are imputed to one cause, and "they" are behind it.
5. Nonetheles regarding the commercialization of all available space I was interested to see that my university had agreed to give its soft drink marketing to Coke (bye bye Pepsi) for a fairly major sum. I forget just what it is, but my back-of-the-envelope showed that the royalty paid to the university amounted to something like 3 softdrinks per person (faculty & staff) per week; and obviously Coke intends to make money beyond that. Since I drink maybe 3 per month, I can only stand amazed. Similarly with McDonald's Burgers. Since I don't eat any, somewhere there are people really stuffing them down, in order to get "billions and billions" sold.
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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