Diet Soda may not be so good for your diet or your circulation
Many of us think of diet soda as better than sugary alternatives, yet a new observational study of 2,500 people appears to show something very different.
Dr. Hannah Gardener reported her study of 2,500 people from different races at the American Stroke Society meeting. The people were asked what and how much soda they drank. Over a long follow up time (an average of 9.3 years, there were 559 blood vessel (vascular) events. Included in this number were strokes caused by blockages and ones that came from bleeding (hemorrhagic).
What the results show is that once the scientists removed risk from the metabolic syndrome, peripheral vascular disease and heart disease history, drinking a diet soda daily posed a 1.48 relative risk compared to people who drank no soda.
Stroke experts reacted quickly to this information noting that it was crucial to control risk and cutting back on diet soda consumption should be considered
Terms you should know
Observational study: In statistics, observational studies look at the effect of something on people in a situation where the researchers do not have control over the thing having the effect being studied. While this is a little complicated, in the case of the research reported at the American Stroke Society meeting in LA, the researchers looked at the effect of drinking diet soda on blood vessel (vascular) events.