Diet Drink Consumption Linked to Heart Disease in Older Women

Lisa Franchi March 31, 2014

Postmenopausal women who consume two or more diet drinks per day are 30 per cent more likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and 50 per cent more likely to die from a related disease. That’s according to a new study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 63rd Annual Scientific Session.

The research involved 59,614 participants, which makes it the largest study to look at the relationship between diet drink consumption, cardiac events and death.

Participants were asked to report their diet drink consumption habits for three months, and the data obtained were assessed after three years. Each drink was defined as the equivalent of a 12-ounce beverage and included both diet sodas and diet fruit drinks. For the purposes of the analysis, researchers divided the women into four consumption groups: two or more diet drinks a day, five to seven diet drinks per week, one to four diet drinks per week, and zero to three diet drinks per month.

After 8.7 years, a follow-up study was made. Researchers found that 8.5 per cent of women who consumed two or more diet drinks a day had a higher risk of coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, heart attack, coronary revascularization procedure, ischemic stroke, peripheral arterial disease and cardiovascular death. Meanwhile, those who had five-to-seven diet drinks per week had 6.9 per cent risk, and those who had the least (one-to-four drinks per week) had 7.2 per cent risk of the said diseases.

The results remained consistent even after taking into account many other factors like demographic characteristics, and cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidity, including body mass index, smoking, hormone therapy use, physical activity, energy intake, salt intake, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and sugar-sweetened beverage intake.

But according to Ankur Vyas, M.D., fellow, Cardiovascular Diseases, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and the lead investigator of the study, the association between diet drinks and cardiovascular problems raises more questions than it answers, and should stimulate further research.

"We only found an association, so we can’t say that diet drinks cause these problems," Vyas said, adding that there may be other factors about people who drink more diet drinks that could explain the connection.

"It’s too soon to tell people to change their behaviour based on this study; however, based on these and other findings we have a responsibility to do more research to see what is going on and further define the relationship, if one truly exists," he adds. "This could have major public health implications." He also cautioned that this particular study only applies to postmenopausal women.

Meanwhile, previous studies have found an association between artificially sweetened drinks and an increase the risk of metabolic syndrome among teens and adults, which makes both diabetes and heart disease more likely.

Source of this article:

Diet Drink Consumption and the Risk of Cardiovascular Event