By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Study: Diet sodas not safer than sugery cousins
Placeholder Image
BOSTON — People who drank one or more diet sodas each day developed the same risks for heart disease as those who downed sugary regular soda, a large but inconclusive study found.
The results surprised the researchers who expected to see a difference between regular and diet soda drinkers. It could be, they suggest, that even no-calorie sweet drinks increase the craving for more sweets, and that people who indulge in sodas probably have less healthy diets overall.
The study’s senior author, Dr. Vasan Ramachandran, emphasized the findings don’t show diet sodas are a cause of increased heart disease risks. But he said they show a surprising link that must be studied.
“It’s intriguing and it begs an explanation by people who are qualified to do studies to understand this better,” said Vasan, of Boston University School of Medicine.
However, a nutrition expert dismissed the study’s findings on diet soda drinkers.
“There’s too much contradictory evidence that shows that diet beverages are healthier for you in terms of losing weight that I would not put any credence to the result on the diet (drinks),” said Barry Popkin, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who has called for cigarette-style surgeon general warnings about the negative health effects of soda.
Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, said the notion that diet drinks are associated with bulging waistlines defies common sense.
“How can something with zero calories that’s 99 percent water with a little flavoring in it ... cause weight gain?” she said.
The research comes from a massive, multi-generational heart study following residents of Framingham, Mass., a town about 25 miles west of Boston. The new study of 9,000 observations of middle-aged men and women was published online in the journal Circulation.
The researchers found those who drank one or more sodas a day — diet or regular — had an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, compared to those who drank sodas infrequently. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that increase the risk for heart disease including large waistlines and higher levels of blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood fats called triglycerides.
At the start of the study, those who reported drinking one or more soft drinks a day had a 48 percent increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome compared to those who drank less soda.
Of participants who initially showed no signs of metabolic syndrome, those who drank one or more sodas a day were at 44 percent higher risk of developing it four years later, they reported.
Researchers expected the results to differ when regular soda and diet soda drinkers were compared, and were surprised they did not, Vasan said.
But Popkin said that result isn’t surprising. He said much of the market for diet sodas are people who have unhealthy lifestyles and know they need to lose weight, with the other portion being thin people who want to stay that way. That means many people drinking diet sodas have unhealthy habits that could lead to increased heart disease risks, no matter that they drink.
In studies in which some users were randomly got diet sodas and others got regular soda, diet soda drinkers lost weight and regular soda drinkers gained weight, Popkin said.
In a statement, the American Heart Association said it supports dietary patterns that include low-calorie beverages.
“Diet soda can be a good option to replace caloric beverages that do not contain important vitamins and minerals,” the association said, adding further study is needed before any association between diet soda and heart risk factors would lead to public recommendations.
Vasan also said poor overall health habits may be one reason diet soda drinkers did not show lower heart disease risks in the Framingham study, but there hasn’t been enough research to say for sure.
Another possible reason is a controversial theory called “dietary compensation,” which holds that if someone drinks a large amount of liquids at a meal, they aren’t satisfied and will tend to eat more at the next meal, Vasan said.
Sign up for our e-newsletters
From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
8ccd7d661f85d37c8298791c9a56bec6e0f8449d4aea5c09c6ffcf527854f186
Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
Latest Obituaries