Diet Soda and Heart Attacks: Is There a Connection?

Don’t look now, but all that diet soda might just be killing you.

A new study shows that people who drink diet soda daily may have a greater risk of heart attack and stroke.

It’s important to now, however, that although the researchers, whose work appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that adults who consumed diet soda daily were 44 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack, the study didn’t prove that the soda alone was the cause.

There could be other things about those who drink diet soda that would explain the relationship, said lead researcher Hannah Gardener of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“What we saw was an association. These people may tend to have more unhealthy habits,” she said.

Gardener and her fellow researchers attempted to account for that, noting that diet soda lovers did tend to be heavier and more frequently have heart risk factors like high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, and diabetes.

The study involved 2,564 New York City adults who were age 69 or older at the onset of the research. Over the next ten years, 591 men and women suffered a heart attack, stroke, or died of cardiovascular causes – including 31 percent of the 163 individuals who consumed a diet soda daily at the onset of the study.

In the end, drinking a diet soda every day was tied to a 44 percent greater chance of heart attack or stroke, compared with just 22 percent for people who did not drink diet soda but still had a stroke or heart attack.

Gardener admitted that if diet soda alone increases your health risks, she’s not sure how.

Some studies on rodents indicate that artificial sweeteners may increase food intake and weight, but whether those results translate to humans has yet to be seen.

“I don’t think people should change their behavior based on this study,” Gardener said, adding that more research is needed to confirm a link between diet soda and cardiovascular trouble.

It’s interesting to note, however, that this isn’t the first study to indicate a possible correlation between the two.  Another study in 2011 also seemed to indicate that there was a relationship between diet soda and cardiovascular disease.

Is the connection really there or not?  Time will tell…but this might be good time to switch over to water.

Related articles

• Study: Diet Soda Drinkers More Prone To Heart Disease…Because They’re Less Healthy (blisstree.com)
• More Bad News for Diet Soda? (organaholic.com)
• Diet Soda Increases Heat Attack Risk, Says New Study (inquisitr.com)
• Diet soda may increase heart attack risks (thezigzagger.com)