NPR: Soda Linked to Heart Attack Risk Factors?

Soda Linked to Heart Attack Risk Factors?

"This is the Health Police. We want you to slowly place that soda on the ground, put your hands in the air and move away from the can. Just move away from the can and your heart will be fine."

OK, maybe it's not that dramatic, but you can bet a new report that soda -- regular or diet -- appears to have a distinct link to heart disease risk factors is going to cause a stir. ABC News reports that a study published in the current issue of Circulation, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association, suggests that drinking even one soda a day is associated with an increase in risk factors for heart disease.

The study's researchers report that those who said they drank a soda or more per day had a 31 percent greater chance of developing obesity, a 30 percent increased risk for gaining inches around the waist, a 25 percent chance of developing high blood sugar levels and a 32 percent greater chance of developing lower "good" cholesterol levels.

The study was based on data collected for the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the health of thousands of people for decades.

Well, as you can imagine, the soda industry is not taking this lying down. The Baltimore Sun reports that Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, an industry-friendly consumer education group, said the study's effect on public health is nil. "This study doesn't conclude that drinking soda will give you a heart attack," he said.

That's something the researchers agree with, by the way. But they do theorize that drinking soda every day could be a "marker" of a lifestyle that is generally unhealthy. That someone who is drinking that much soda is also likely to be the person who orders the extra-large burger, a super-sized order of fries and a cherry pie for lunch.

11:46 AM ET | 07-25-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

This fits in with something that I've found on my current healthy eating kick. The more sweet items I consume, even no-calorie products with artificial sweetener, the more I crave sweetness. My daily diet cokes made it much more likely that I would break out the pint of Chubby Hubby ice cream after dinner. The good news is that after two weeks without sweets, my hunger for them subsided.

Sent by Bruce | 12:19 PM ET | 07-25-2007

Most of the news reports that you hear are reporting this wrong. They suggest that soda drinking is a marker for other bad behaviors. However, the abstract for the study says the following:

"Multivariable models included adjustments for age, sex, physical activity, smoking, dietary intake of saturated fat, trans fat, fiber, magnesium, total calories, and glycemic index."

What that means is that, even after taking into account all of those other things, soda drinkers were more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than non-soda drinkers.

Sent by brainscan | 1:29 PM ET | 07-25-2007

As for myself, I tend to consume a lot of diet soda so I don't get hungry, and even when I do, I rarely get dessert, fries or the like. Maybe it's the bubbles.

Sent by andy carvin | 4:44 PM ET | 07-25-2007

Yeah, I often reach for a diet soda when my sweet tooth is acting up. I thought that was a good thing: zero calories versus lots of calories and fat in a dessert. But maybe it's just encouraging my sweet tooth. I should probably follow Bruce's example. How hard was it to go cold turkey, Bruce?

Sent by Erica Ryan | 5:11 PM ET | 07-25-2007

I'm a 65 year old man and I quit drinking soda of any kind 7 days ago as a stop-gap measure to reduce the size of my middle. I haven't noticed any size reduction yet, but I do have more energy.

Sent by Marshall | 4:12 AM ET | 07-28-2007

Drinking Soda, a highly processed food, and incidentally, a high contributor to CO2 pollution, has made it easier for many Americans to deny that they are addicted to sugar. I stopped consuming soda many years ago when I realized that corporate America was systematically changing our food sources to unhealthy things. And as the report summarized, this is merely a marker for those who refuse to face the fact that they are slowly killing themselves with processed, chemically laden junk.

Sent by Tim Mitchell | 10:40 AM ET | 07-28-2007

Almost every "product" produced by conventional farming has some strings attached.. either the environment is polluted or your body, The human body was not made to process things created by man, and will act accordingly. Fist thier was just pop, and then they created diet pop..both are addictive. The solution is Organic. Think Organic> Eat Organic> Live Organic

Sent by Ashley Powelll - Founder of Organic Health | 12:55 PM ET | 07-28-2007

When I was thirty I developed severe back pain and pain in my chest just below my ribs. No doctor could figure it out. Then I noticed it got worse when I drank soda, or cool aid. I switched to water and never drank anything with sugar again. I was immediately pain free and still am some 15 years later. Just one can of soda can still put me in agony for a three days. The funny thing is I can still drink beer without any problems. Although water is preferred.

Sent by John Foulks | 7:27 AM ET | 07-30-2007

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