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Is Drinking Diet Soda A Threat to Our Heart?
 

Drinking too much soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks might make a person overweight, which in turn might jeopardize his or her health. In a study of 3,000 participants that was published in the Journal ‘Hypertension’, researchers found that those who drank more than one serving (about 12 ounces) a day of sugary drinks had significantly higher blood pressure than those who drank one serving or less daily. Remember this, hypertension is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

Therefore, instead of drinking normal soda, many people have switched to diet soda thinking that it would not make them fat. In reality, this is quite different from what a new study had found: diet sodas might be bad for the head as well as the heart.

Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine reported that people who drank diet soda everyday had a 61 percent higher chance of vascular events, including heart attack and stroke, than those who had never consumed diet drinks. Their findings were presented on February 10, 2011 at the American Stroke Associations International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles.

In the study, data of 2,564 north Manhattan residents regarding their eating behaviors, exercise habits, as well as cigarette and alcohol consumption, were collected. These participants were also given physical examinations that included blood pressure measurements, blood tests for cholesterol, and other factors that might affect the risk for heart attack and stroke.

The amount and kind of soda participants drank were studied and then grouped into 7 categories, namely No soda (meaning less than one soda of any kind per month), Moderate regular soda only (between one per month and 6 per week), Daily regular soda (at least one per day), Moderate diet soda only, Daily diet soda only, Moderate diet and any regular, Daily diet with any regular.

All groups of participants were followed, on average, 9.3 years, and 559 vascular events were found. Even after discounting various risk factors such as age, sex, race, ethnicity, smoking, exercise, alcohol, daily caloric intake, metabolic syndrome, peripheral vascular disease and heart disease history, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, increased risk among regular diet soda drinkers was 48 percent.

Surprisingly, no increased risk was found among people who drank regular soda. But does this mean that people should switch back to normal soda? The answer is certainly no! This is because many evidences have linked excessive sugar to many chronic health disorders.

While scientists are still figuring the causes, they suspect that it could be something in the diet soda that harm the blood vessel or it is possible that people who drink diet sodas also have unhealthy eating habits. For instance, people like to eat fast food with diet soda.

At the meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego on June 26, 2011, researchers from the University of Texas, San Antonio also reported that diet soda might not help consumers control their calorie consumption.

After tracking the health and habits of 474 adults for around 10 years, researchers discovered that those who frequently drank diet soda had their waists expanded 70 percent more than that of non-drinkers. For people who drank 2 or more diet soda a day, their waists expanded at 5 times the rate of those who did not drink at all. Once the waist grows, chance that health risks such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and stroke increases.

According to researchers, artificial sweeteners could have distorted appetite and caused people craving extra-sweet food, or it might damage brain cells that help people know when they are full.

Since the findings are still inconclusive, people need not give up diet soda, unless they are among those who have many risk factors for heart disease or stroke, including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, a family history of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and a history of cardiovascular events.

Until the results are out, perhaps people should stick to plain drinking water that is the healthiest and probably the most economized in most countries.

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