ATLANTA (June 7, 2013) — Findings presented in a study on diet soft drink consumption and the risk of developing diabetes in Japanese men is critically flawed. This study does not prove that drinking diet beverages leads to diabetes; moreover, it is a study of only associations – no actual clinical testing was conducted. The most likely explanation for the findings is that those who drank diet soda were already on the path to getting diabetes due to other risk factors, not that the diet soda caused diabetes.