They found adults who drink one or more sodas a day — diet or regular — had about a 50 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome — a cluster of risk factors such as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of “good” cholesterol, high blood pressure and other symptoms.
“When you have metabolic syndrome, your risk of developing heart disease or stroke doubles. You also have a risk of developing diabetes,” said Dr. Ramachandran Vasan of Boston University School of Medicine, whose work appears in the journal Circulation.
The results surprised the researchers who expected to see a difference between regular and diet soda drinkers. It could be, they suggest, that even no-calorie sweet drinks increase the craving for more sweets, and that people who indulge in sodas probably have less healthy diets overall.
Those who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese.
They had a 30 percent increased risk of developing increased waist circumference — which has been shown to predict heart disease risk better than weight alone.
They also had a 25 percent increased risk of developing high blood triglycerides as well as high blood sugar, and a 32 percent higher risk of having low high-density lipoprotein or ”good” cholesterol levels.
One possibility is that diet soda is sweet. Maybe drinking something sweet conditions you in such a way that you develop a preference for sweet things,” he said.
Link to the entire article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19918336/
5 years ago
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3 comments:
Soda is so bad for you in so many ways, even the diet stuff. I have an uncle that had kidney problems from drinking too much soda as a kid (but that was back in the '50s).
The carbonation can tear your stomach up, the artificial sweetners can be nasty, and regular soda is just wasted calories.
I had, at one time, completely cut soda out of my life and cut it out for Lent this past year. Too bad it didn't stick...
Don't forget too that carbonation in general leaches out minerals in your body to stabilize itself. So, bye bye calcium! :) I gave up carbonation while I was running in high school and college. Though, I have an occasional drink, it's amazing how much it hurts your throat when you haven't had it for a while(although I willingly drink soda as a root beer float - can't help myself). I especially liked Xander's remark when he tried it for the first time - "ooo, it burns, Mommy" - great! preconditioning our kids for alcohol - that's nice! :P
OK ~ Casey said I put this on here just to prove my point. Which is partly true. I just thought it was a interesting article and thought I would share.
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