Don’t Kid Yourself: Diet Soda Ain’t Healthy!
August 3, 2007 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
Drinking diet doesn’t make you exempt from the link between soda consumption and risk factors for heart disease, say new findings from Boston University School of Medicine.
“We were struck by the fact that whether it was diet or regular soda that participants consumed, the association with increased risk was present,” says Ramachandran Vasan, a professor of medicine at BU’s School of Medicine and the study’s lead investigator and senior author.
Vasan says that study participants who drank soda on a daily basis exhibited an increased risk for developing metabolic syndrome. The syndrome, which doubles a person’s risk of heart disease, is a grouping of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors. These factors include excess waist circumference, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low levels of HDL (good cholesterol), and high blood-sugar levels even on an empty stomach. According to the American Heart Association, more than 50 million Americans have metabolic syndrome. *
I have to be honest: I think diet soda is disgusting. Regular soda is bad enough, but at least it has real sugar in it instead of being 100% faketastic, you know? I do drink about a fridge pack (12 cans) of Pepsi every 2 months or so, but other than that, I’m not big on soda. And now, after these results, I may very well be cutting down.
Are you a soda drinker? Will this information change your soda consumption?
Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King
I have never understood the appeal of diet soda. It tastes like a mouthful of chemicals to me. Blech! I’ll take sparkling mineral water over soda any day.
Guess I can give myself a pat on the back for not drinking the stuff now.