A new study shows that women who drink two or more diet drinks a day are 30% more likely to have heart problems, including heart attack and stroke, and 50 percent more likely to die from related disease. The University of Iowa included nearly 60,000 women, making it the largest study of it’s kind.
The study looked at diet soda and diet fruit drink intake and heart health for women participating in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study, comparing women who never or only rarely consume diet drinks to those who consume two or more a day.
This is one of the largest studies on this topic, and our findings are consistent with some previous data, especially those linking diet drinks to the metabolic syndrome.” – Dr.Ankur Vyas, lead investigator of the study
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Diet drinks were defined as a 12-ounce beverage of diet soda or a diet fruit drink.
After an average follow-up of 8.7 years, the primary outcome—defined as a composite of incident coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, heart attack, coronary revascularization procedure, ischemic stroke, peripheral arterial disease, and cardiovascular death—occurred in 8.5 percent of the women consuming two or more diet drinks a day compared to 6.9 percent in the five-to-seven diet drinks per week group; 6.8 percent in the one-to-four drinks per week group; and 7.2 percent in the zero-to-three per month group.
The association persisted even after researchers adjusted the data to account for demographic characteristics and other cardiovascular risk factors, including body mass index, smoking, hormone therapy use, physical activity, energy intake, salt intake, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and sugar-sweetened beverage intake. On average, women who consumed two or more diet drinks a day were younger, more likely to be smokers, and had a higher prevalence of diabetes, high blood pressure, and higher body mass index.” – Iowa State