Diet Soft Drink a Day Increases Heart Attack, Stroke Risk: According to a Study

TimesLive
February 1, 2012.

If you imbibe diet soda daily, a new study warns that you could be at increased risk of a stroke or heart attack.
 
Data were analysed from 2 564 participants in the NIH-funded Northern Manhattan Study, with researchers examining how often individuals drank soft drinks -- diet and regular -- and the number of strokes and heart attacks that occurred over a 10-year period.

They found that those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered heart attacks or strokes than those who drank none. Light diet soft drink users, meaning "those who drank between one a month and six a week," and those who chose regular soft drinks were not more likely to suffer vascular health problems, according to a press release.

Findings were published on January 26 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

In other recent research, a 10-year study from the University of Texas in the United States revealed that people who drank two or more diet sodas a day gained 70 percent more abdominal fat than those in the study who didn't drink diet soda.

Abdominal fat is a major risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, as well as other chronic conditions, the researchers said.

Another study from the same university found that the artificial sweetener aspartame raised blood sugar levels in mice prone to diabetes.

More thoughts on diet soda and your health here.

Comment:  I have been addicted to diet sodas, particularly Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi, for more years than I can remember; well about 3 decades at least.

Over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on keeping my addiction to at least 2 liters of diet soda a day safe and secure.

In the years of my addiction, and the ones previous to that where I was sucking down regular Coke, I barely drank water at all.

I knew sh*t had to change but kicking the habit was hard.  At one point I made it past six months without a single diet soda but the draw was too hard and I relapsed.

If this confession reads like one of a drug addict you better believe I consider my diet soda habit a drug addiction.

Have you ever read the names of the chemicals they throw together into Diet Coke?

Oh yeah, I believe there is a correlation between diet soda and diabetes.  Can't prove it but there is a need for a study. 

Nonetheless, good news for me is that four months ago I gave the witches brew up, again.  I started drinking water and put the thought of fish f*cking and crapping in water out of my mind ;0)

And so now I sleep through the night and can even claim to be doing my part to cut my carbon footprint since there are no plastic diet soda bottles in my fridge.

I think this time around my addiction to diet soda is solved.  Now I need to deal with my addiction to coffee, blogging, motorcycles, and unattainable women.

Onward!