Health Hazards of Soda

Soda, sugared or diet, may raise a person’s risks of an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke.  Hannah Gardener, from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (Florida, USA), and colleagues studied data collected on 2,564 participants enrolled in the Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS), launched in 1993 to examine stroke incidence and risk factors in a multi-ethnic urban population. A total of 3,298 participants over 40 years old (average age 69) were enrolled through 2001 and continue to be followed. Researchers asked subjects at the outset to report how much and what kind of soda they drank. Based on the data, they grouped participants into seven consumption categories: no soda (meaning less than one soda of any kind per month); moderate regular soda only (between one per month and six per week), daily regular soda (at least one per day); moderate diet soda only; daily diet soda only; and two groups of people who drink both types: moderate diet and any regular, and daily diet with any regular. During an average follow-up of 9.3 years, 559 vascular events occurred (including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, which is caused by rupture of a weakened blood vessel).  After adjusting for a number of confounding variables, the team fund that the subjects who drank diet soda every day had a 61% higher risk of ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, as compared to those who reported no soda drinking.