Diet drinks could not be a healthier option
Diet drinks have long been championed as a healthier version, but new research shows that women who drink two diet drinks a day could be 30% more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke later in life.
There was a strong link between consuming large amounts of the diet soft drinks and heart disease, in the study of 60,000 women in their 50s and 60s.
The research found that women who drank two or more diet beverages a day were 30% more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke and 50% more at risk of dying from a heart-related problem.
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, told the Mail Online: “In this large observational study of post-menopausal women in America there was an association between drinking two diet drinks per day and increased risk of developing heart disease, but the findings are not conclusive and do not necessarily mean that diet drinks cause heart disease.
“Further research in other groups is needed to confirm whether diet drinks can actually cause heart disease. For the time being, women should moderate their intake of both high sugar and diet drinks and avoid overindulging in both.”
The scientists suggest that these findings could be because diet drinks tend to be popular among the overweight and diabetics, who are more at risk of heart disease in the first place.
Lead researcher Dr Ankur Vyas said: “We only found an association, so we can’t say that diet drinks cause these problems.”
Tagged in Diet Stroke Healthy eating