Fizzy Drinks
Let's start with the bottom line: There are no healthy choices when it
comes to fizzy or soft drinks.
You probably heard about the recent study that found a link between
soft drinks and increased heart disease risk. Well, that's just the
surface. Look a little closer and you'll see the true risk is even
worse. Worse than heart disease? Yes, even worse than heart disease,
because heart disease is just part of the deal.
Last month, researchers with the Framingham Heart Study reported on a
four-year trial that followed the fizzy-drink habits of more than 6,000
healthy subjects. The average age of the cohort was about 53. Results
showed that subjects who drank one or more fizzy drinks each day were
nearly 45 percent more likely to develop these symptoms of metabolic
syndrome: obesity, increased waist circumference, impaired fasting
glucose, higher blood pressure, high triglycerides, and higher LDL
cholesterol. When three or more of these symptoms are diagnosed in one
patient, risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes rises significantly.
Researchers were most surprised to find that diet fizzy drinks had the
same effect. Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage
Association, posed this question to the Associated Press: "How can
something with zero calories that's 99 percent water with a little
flavouring in it...cause weight gain?"
Even though that's a wild oversimplification of the contents of a diet
fizzy drink, there are actually three likely reasons why diet fizzy
drink drinkers might gain weight:
1) Zero calorie fizzy drinks are just as sweet as sugar-laden fizzy
drinks, so they create a craving for more sweets
2) People who drink lots of liquids with a meal tend to eat more at the
following meal
3) People who drink fizzy drinks (either diet or regular) often have
less healthy diets compared to non-fizzy drink drinkers
And there are two other factors that might play a role in increasing
metabolic syndrome symptoms:
1) Studies with animals have shown that the substance used to create
caramel colour in colas and other soft drinks may cause inflammation
and insulin resistance
2) In previous research, diet and regular fizzy drink intake has been
linked to obesity in the young and high blood pressure in older
subjects
Of course, there's one critical word missing from this discussion of
diet soda: aspartame (the controversial artificial sweetener).
The diabetes factor
For HSI members, the link between type 2 diabetes and fizzy drink
consumption will not come as a surprise.
In a 2004 e-Alert I told you about a Harvard study that examined nine
years of dietary and medical data on more than 51,000 women who
participated in the Nurses' Health Study II. From this group, well over
700 cases of type 2 diabetes were diagnosed during the study period.
The Harvard team concluded that excess calories and high levels of
rapidly absorbable sugars in non-diet soft drinks promoted weight gain
and a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, women who
drank one or more soft drinks per day had an 80 percent increased risk
of type 2 diabetes compared to women who didn't drink sodas.
Not surprisingly, a soft drink trade group disagreed with the Harvard
results. Their spokesperson stated that "unhealthy lifestyles" are to
blame for obesity and diabetes, not soft drink consumption.
But he's neglecting one key fact: Daily soft drink consumption fits in
perfectly with an unhealthy lifestyle.
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