Trump Inadvertently Debunks Alex Jones' Drugged Soda Conspiracy
It's pretty obvious why the president is tired.
Alex Jones has built an empire peddling conspiracies, including theories claiming the Sandy Hook massacre wasn’t real and that 9/11 was an inside job. By doing so, the founder of Info Wars has made millions of dollars and earned a fan named President Donald Trump. On Monday, Jones floated his newest conspiracy explaining why the president always seems so tired: Donald Trump is being drugged y’all, and the culprits are targeting his beloved Diet Cokes and iced teas.
On The Alex Jones Show, he claimed:
“I’ve talked to people, multiple ones, and they believe that they are putting a slow sedative that they’re building up, that’s also addictive, in his Diet Cokes and his iced tea and that the president, by six or seven at night, is basically slurring his words and is drugged. . .The president’s about two months into being covertly drugged. Now I’m risking my life, by the way, to tell you this.”
Big, if true. But a far more likely explanation for any fatigue the president demonstrates is the fact that he is a 71-year old man with a diet that resembles that of a fifteen-year-old attempting to feed himself for the first time.
Definitely energy-boosting stuff.
Let’s start with the Diet Cokes: The president likes to slurp them down, sometimes through a straw, and he can press a red button on the Resolute Desk to have them delivered to him. They are, demonstrably, health bummers. Filled with artificial sugars known to contribute to weight gain, regular consumption has been shown to increase a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
A small, controversial study published in the journal Stroke in April reported a correlation between diet soda consumption and a higher risk of developing dementia or experiencing a stroke. While the study’s authors could not definitely prove a cause-effect relationship, numerous studies have confirmed that habitual diet soda drinking is linked to obesity.
Even Trump, who grappled with his own passion for Diet Coke in 2012, seems to be aware of this correlation:
What makes up the rest of Trump’s diet is less than ideal for someone tasked with leading the United States of America. He loves to get down with Doritos and Lays potato chips, overcooked steaks, and McDonald’s burgers. That’s a far cry from Obama’s seven almonds.
Trump’s diet is high in salt and in fat, which can lead to the development of cardiovascular disease, especially for people over the age of 50. Studies also demonstrate that fast food consumption has a strong positive association with weight gain, and increases the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. And being overweight, scientists have found, makes people to become sedentary and tired.
Donald Trump would probably want to eat this.
Trump’s diet is hardly ideal for a 71-year old. Health experts encourage seniors to eat high-protein, but lean, diets — food like poultry, seafood, and beans. Switching at least one red meat meal per day reduces the chance of a stroke, a 2016 JAMA Internal Medicine study reported, and cutting out high-calorie foods like chips can help control weight gain and the risk of high blood pressure.
One thing is obvious: Trump’s diet does not follow the recommendations for a man of his age and weight. While we, unlike Jones, won’t speculate on the exact issues of his health, it seems a lot more likely that the president is not being drugged — he’s just sleepy because he eats like shit.
