Study Diet Soft Drinks With Cardiac Risk

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Study Links Diet Soft Drinks With Cardiac Risk July 23, 2007 08:40:40 PM PST

By Ed Edelson

HealthDay Reporter

 

MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking more than one soda a day --

even if it's the sugar-free diet kind -- is associated with an increased

incidence of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors linked to the

development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, a study finds.

 

The link to diet soda found in the study was " striking " but not entirely a

surprise, said Dr. Ramachandran Vasan, study senior author and professor of

medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. There had been some hints of

it in earlier studies, he said.

 

" But this is the first study to show the association in a prospective fashion

and in a large population, " Vasan said.

 

That population consisted of more than 6,000 participants in the Framingham

Heart Study, which has been following residents of a Massachusetts town since

1948. When the soda portion of the study began, all participants were free of

metabolic syndrome, a collection of risk factors including high blood pressure,

elevated levels of the blood fats called triglycerides, low levels of the

artery-protecting HDL cholesterol, high fasting blood sugar levels and excessive

waist circumference. Metabolic syndrome is the presence of three or more of

these risk factors.

 

Over the four years of the study, people who consumed more than one soft drink

of any kind a day were 44 percent more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than

those who didn't drink a soda a day.

 

The findings are published in the July 24 issue of the journal Circulation.

 

A variety of explanations, none proven, have been proposed for the link

between diet soft drink consumption and metabolic syndrome, Vasan said. That

association was evident even when the researchers accounted for other factors,

such as levels of saturated fat and fiber in the diet, total calorie intake,

smoking and physical activity.

 

One theory is that the high sweetness of all soft drinks makes a person more

prone to eat sugary, fattening foods. Another is that the caramel content of

soft drinks promotes metabolic changes that lead to insulin resistance. " These

are hotly debated by nutritional experts, " Vasan said.

 

Vasan, who noted that he is not a nutritional expert, said he leans toward the

theory that " this is a marker of dietary behavior " -- that people who like to

drink sweet soda also like to eat the kind of foods that cardiac nutritionists

warn against.

 

" But we cannot infer causality, " Vasan said, meaning there is no proof that

soda itself is the villain. " We have an association. Maybe it is a causal one or

maybe it is a marker of something else. "

 

Carefully controlled animal studies might resolve the cause-and-effect issue,

he said.

Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood

Institute, which funds the Framingham Heart Study, said in a prepared statement:

" Other studies have shown that the extra calories and sugar in soft drinks

contribute to weight gain, and therefore heart disease risk. This study echoes

those findings by extending the link to all soft drinks and the metabolic

syndrome. "

 

Dr. Suzanne R. Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill

Hospital in New York City, said, " There is no safe way of eating junk food, just

as we learned the lesson from trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils often

found in fat-free or low-fat cookies. Diet soda does not protect us from the

development of what we are trying to avoid by consuming it. "

 

More information

Learn more about metabolic syndrome at the American Heart Association.

 

http://health./news/177664

 

 

 

 

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