- Diet sodas contain artificial sweeteners and have been marketed as a better drink choice than regular soda.
- New ads from major soda companies have promoted them to reduce obesity.
- These ads also highlight the fact that they have removed sugary drinks in schools by 90 percent.
- But is this really a good thing?
- We have already seen how artificially sweetened drinks raise depression risk and increase weight gain.
- Are diet sodas a better alternative, or could they be even worse than drinking regular soda?
- Research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference showed that daily diet soft drink consumption was associated with severe vascular risk factors, including stroke.
- The study included 2,564 people in a multi-ethnic study called the Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS). The researchers found that people who drank those who drank diet soda every day had a 61 percent higher risk of vascular events including stroke than those who did not drink soda.
- “If our results are confirmed with future studies, then it would suggest that diet soda may not be the optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages for protection against vascular outcomes,” said Hannah Gardener, Sc.D., epidemiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Fla and lead author of this study.
- NOMAS is a team of reserachers from Columbia University in New York and Miller School of Medicine in Miami, which was launched in 1993 to analyze risk factors and incdiences of stroke within a multi-ethnic population.
- In the study, participants were asked to report how much soda they drank and also what kind.
- The participants were divided into 7 groups:
- No soda
- Moderate: Between one soda per month and six per week
- One soda per day
- Moderate diet soda only
- Daily diet soda only
- Moderate diet or regular
- Daily diet or regular
- In about a 9 year span, 559 vascular events occurred including ischemic stroke, which is caused by blood clots. The team included age, sex, ethnicity, smoking, exercise, alcohol consumption, diet, metabolic syndromes, and heart disease history. The increased risk of stroke and other vascular events stayed consistent at 48%.
