Articles

{"articles":{"total":2,"items":[{"ID":4,"status":40,"author_ID":1,"category_ID":1,"date":"2025-06-13 09:02:04","title":"Are diet sodas really safer? A 14-year study suggests otherwise","featured_media":"https:\/\/data.paperleap.com\/mod_blog\/4\/m_688e3ed3322fcHKv.jpg","content":"We\u2019ve all been there: standing in a supermarket aisle, wondering whether to grab the regular soda or its diet version. If you\u2019re like many people, you might assume the sugar-free option is the healthier choice, especially if you\u2019re trying to avoid weight gain or reduce your risk of diabetes.\n\nBut a new Australian study, published in *[Diabetes & Metabolism][1]* in May 2025, casts serious doubt on that assumption. The work was led by **Dr Robel Hussen Kabthymer** of **Monash University**, alongside colleagues from the University of Adelaide, University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands, Cancer Council Victoria, the University of Melbourne and **RMIT University**.\n\nThe study followed more than 36,000 people in Melbourne for nearly 14 years. The goal? To investigate how often people drank sweetened beverages\u2014both sugary and artificially sweetened\u2014and what that meant for their long-term risk of developing type 2 diabetes.\n\nParticipants filled out detailed food-frequency questionnaires, including how often they drank:\n* **Sugar-sweetened beverages**\u2014think regular cola, lemonade and energy drinks.\n* **Artificially sweetened beverages**\u2014the \u201cdiet\u201d, \u201czero\u201d or \u201cno-sugar\u201d versions.\n\nResearchers grouped intake from \u201crarely or never\u201d to \u201cone or more a day,\u201d then watched to see who developed type 2 diabetes.\n\n### The surprising link between diet drinks and diabetes\n\nIt\u2019s no secret that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (like sodas and energy drinks) is linked to obesity and metabolic disease. This new study confirmed that connection\u2014people who drank these sugary drinks daily had a 23% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who rarely drank them.\n\nBut here\u2019s the twist: the study found that people who drank diet sodas every day had an even higher risk\u2014up to 83% greater in some analyses.\n\nEven after adjusting for things like body weight, waist size, smoking, and physical activity, the risk from diet drinks remained elevated. This suggests that the problem isn\u2019t just that people who drink diet soda are already at higher risk for diabetes\u2014it\u2019s that these beverages may be contributing directly to that risk.\n\n\n\n### So\u2026 How can diet soda increase diabetes risk?\n\nResearchers don\u2019t have all the answers yet, but there are some clues. Some artificial sweeteners may affect the gut microbiome in ways that impair how our bodies handle sugar. Others might confuse the body\u2019s natural insulin response, leading to blood sugar spikes even without real sugar being present. And there\u2019s also the possibility that drinking diet sodas may lead people to overeat in other areas, thinking they\u2019ve saved calories on their drinks.\n\n**In short: artificial sweeteners might not be as \u201cneutral\u201d as we once thought.**\n\n### A wake-up call for the world\n\nAustralia, like many countries, has a growing diabetes problem. About 1 in 20 Australians has diabetes, most of it type 2. Many drink soft drinks regularly, and while public health efforts have focused on reducing sugary drink consumption (through campaigns and proposals for sugar taxes), there\u2019s been far less scrutiny of diet drinks.\n\nThis new study suggests that needs to change. Swapping a regular soda for a diet one may not be a free pass after all.\n\n### What should you drink instead?\n\nWater, tea, coffee (without added sugar), and sparkling water are safer bets. If you need flavor, adding a splash of citrus or a few slices of cucumber can help. It\u2019s also worth checking how often you reach for \u201cdiet\u201d options out of habit\u2014and whether you\u2019re doing so in the belief that they\u2019re harmless.\n\n### Bottom line\n\nThis study is one of the largest and most rigorous to date examining the long-term health impacts of sweetened beverages in Australia. Its findings challenge the assumption that diet drinks are a healthier alternative to sugary sodas\u2014and call for public health policies to address both types of drinks.\n\nSo next time you're reaching for a can labeled \u0022zero sugar,\u0022 it might be worth asking: zero sugar, yes\u2014but at what cost?\n\n[1]: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.diabet.2025.101665 \u0022Diabetes & Metabolism\u0022","stats_views":4849,"stats_likes":0,"stats_saves":0,"author_firstname":"Paperleap","author_lastname":null,"category_name":"General","sID":"4","slug":"are-diet-sodas-really-safer-a-14-year-study-suggests-otherwise-4","category_sID":"1","category_slug":"general-1","author_slug":"paperleap-1"},{"ID":2,"status":40,"author_ID":1,"category_ID":1,"date":"2025-03-01 08:11:44","title":"A brain turned to glass: how the vesuvius eruption preserved a human miracle","featured_media":"https:\/\/data.paperleap.com\/mod_blog\/2\/m_688d0c47f330dlbO.jpg","content":"When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, it didn't just bury the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum\u2014it flash-froze a moment in time. Among the many tragic stories entombed in volcanic ash, one stands out for its sheer, almost cinematic strangeness: the discovery of a human brain that turned to glass.\n\nYes, you read that right. Not fossilized, not mummified\u2014glass.\n\nThis astonishing phenomenon was recently described by a team of researchers from Italy and Germany in a 2025 paper published in *Scientific Reports*. The lead author, Guido Giordano from Roma Tre University, worked alongside experts in volcanology, materials science, and forensic biology to investigate what happened to the brain of a man who died in Herculaneum, one of the towns devastated by Vesuvius.\n\n### A Guardian and his final moments\n\nThe victim in question was likely a young man, around 20 years old, found lying in his bed inside the Collegium Augustalium\u2014a building devoted to the cult of Emperor Augustus.\n\n\n\nArchaeologists had long known that this site was close to the volcano\u2019s deadly pyroclastic flows, but what they found inside his skull was truly shocking: black, shiny fragments resembling obsidian.\n\nThese fragments weren\u2019t just unusual\u2014they turned out to be the vitrified (glassified) remains of his brain and spinal cord.\n\n\n### A one-in-two-millennia find\n\nArchaeologists first noticed something shiny in the victim\u2019s skull back in the 1960s, but only recently did anyone prove it was truly vitrified brain tissue. This winter, an international team led by volcanologist **Guido Giordano** of Roma Tre University published the full story in *Scientific Reports* (February 27 2025). His co-authors span fields and borders: materials scientist **Joachim Deubener** and colleagues at Technische Universit\u00e4t Clausthal in Germany, biomedical researcher **PierPaolo Petrone** at the University of Naples Federico II, and several others in Italy\u2019s national research institutes. ([Nature][1])\n\n### Glass where biology should be\n\nNormally, glass forms when a molten material cools so quickly that crystals don\u2019t have time to grow\u2014think volcanic obsidian or your kitchen windowpanes. Organic tissue is different: it\u2019s mostly water, so scientists only \u201cvitrify\u201d organs by plunging them into liquid nitrogen at \u2013196 \u00b0C. Warm it up, and the glassy solid melts right back into squishy flesh. In other words, you don\u2019t get room-temperature brain glass\u2014unless a volcano rewrites the rules. \n\n### The volcanic recipe: flash-fry, then deep-freeze (sort of)\n\nGiordano\u2019s team reconstructed the horror-movie timing:\n\n1. **A super-heated ash cloud** detached from Vesuvius\u2019 main plume and tore through Herculaneum at **well above 510 \u00b0C**\u2014hot enough to boil bodily fluids in an instant.\n2. **Seconds later,** the cloud dissipated into open air. Temperatures around the victim\u2019s skull plummeted at roughly **1,000 \u00b0C per second**, locking the partially liquefied brain into a glassy state before it could decompose.\n3. **Minutes to hours later,** cooler (yet still deadly) surges buried the city in ash measuring up to 465 \u00b0C\u2014hot, but not hot enough to re-melt the newly formed organic glass. \n\nThat rapid \u201cfire-and-ice\u201d combo is why experts call this the only confirmed case of natural human tissue vitrified and preserved on Earth.\n\n### Peering inside a glass mind\n\nUnder an electron microscope, those midnight-black chips still show delicate neural networks\u2014axons, cell bodies, even the ghostly shapes of neurons. Finding such microscopic detail in a 2,000-year-old specimen is like opening a time capsule far smaller than a grain of rice. Beyond the wow factor, it offers bio-archaeologists a pristine snapshot of Roman-era health and gives materials scientists a brand-new, carbon-based glass to ponder. ([Nature][1])\n\n### Why it matters today\nBeyond the obvious \u201cwow\u201d factor, this discovery stretches across disciplines. For volcanologists, it offers new clues about the dynamics and temperatures of ash clouds. For forensic scientists, it challenges our assumptions about how the human body responds to extreme environments. And for archaeologists, it's a hauntingly intimate look into one person's final moments in the chaos of a historic disaster.\n\n[1]: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-025-88894-5?utm_source=paperleap.com \u0022Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in ... - Nature\u0022\n[5]: https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/mount-vesuvius-boiled-its-victims-blood-and-caused-their-skulls-explode-180970504\/?utm_source=paperleap.com \u0022Mount Vesuvius Boiled Its Victims' Blood and Caused Their Skulls to ...\u0022","stats_views":14845,"stats_likes":0,"stats_saves":0,"author_firstname":"Paperleap","author_lastname":null,"category_name":"General","sID":"2","slug":"a-brain-turned-to-glass-how-the-vesuvius-eruption-preserved-a-human-miracle-2","category_sID":"1","category_slug":"general-1","author_slug":"paperleap-1"}]},"head":{"title":"Articles","description":"Articles"},"theme":{"description":"Articles"}}