Mixing Alcohol With Diet Soda Survey Lacking In Evidence

Only 16 People Participated And They Used Squirt, Not Coke Or Pepsi

Did you see the survey – it made the national news shows – which claims that using diet sodas as a mixer in alcoholic drinks makes people drunker?

It’s because, according to the in the April edition of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, people drinking Diet Squirt tested higher on a breathalyzer than those who drank regular Squirt. One theory is that the sugar in regular sodas digests faster than the alcohol better than the non-sugar drinks.

But Squirt? Who the heck uses Squirt as a mixer? Do you know of any bar that even serves Squirt? Would you not feel embarrassed to ask a bartender to mix you, say, a vodka and Squirt? Imagine the look you would get if you did it!

The sodas you use for drinks are Coke or Pepsi. Perhaps Sprite. Not Squirt.

But the survey really doesn’t prove anything anyway. It used just 16 people. That’s hardly a fair sampling of the drinking public.

And then there was this quote:

“One of the key things we found was that even though (BrAC) peaked 18 percent higher in the diet condition, [participants] didn’t feel any more intoxicated and they didn’t feel any different as to how willing they were to drive a car,” lead author Cecile Marczinski, an assistant professor of psychology at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Ky., told TIME Magazine.

So we should keep drinking our Skinny Pirates.