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In the study, the researchers cataloged the responses of some 106,000 women who completed a food questionnaire. The survey included questions about how often they drank sugary drinks, including soda, sports drinks, and sugary bottled water.
The participants, whose average age was 52, had not been diagnosed with heart disease, stroke, or diabetes when they entered the study. However, based on follow-ups over two decades, many began to show signs of those conditions
The researchers concluded that drinking one or more sugary drinks each day was associated with an almost 20% greater chance of having cardiovascular disease, compared to women who did not drink or rarely drank sugary drinks.
Some drinks are worse than others
Those who consumed fruit drinks with added sugar daily were 42% more likely to experience cardiovascular disease compared to those who did not drink sugary drinks at all. (The study definition of “fruit drink” excluded fruit juices and only included fruit flavored drinks with added sugar.)
Frequent soft drinkers were less at risk, with a 23% greater chance of cardiovascular disease overall.
Sugar can narrow the arteries.
“We assume that sugar can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in several ways,” said lead author Cheryl Anderson, a professor of family and public health at the University of California, San Diego.
“It increases glucose levels and insulin concentrations in the blood, which can increase appetite and lead to obesity, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease.”
He noted that excess sugar is associated with inflammation, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.
These conditions are related to the development of atherosclerosis, which is the narrowing of the arteries that forms the basis of most cardiovascular diseases.
For the purposes of this study, the researchers defined cardiovascular disease as the first instance of a heart attack, undergoing a revascularization procedure (such as a coronary artery bypass), or having a fatal or non-fatal stroke.
Since then, the large longitudinal cohort study has followed the same women who first entered 25 years ago, drawing insights on a variety of associations between risk factors and health outcomes. The study has resulted in more than 200 academic publications in the past 25 years.
In this cardiovascular disease-related study, researchers extracted survey data from all women in the California Teacher Study cohort. They tracked the women until the participants experienced a cardiovascular event, died, moved from California, or stopped submitting questionnaires.
A key strength of this study is that “the observation period is longer: 20 years,” said Dr. Bob Eckel, former president of the American Heart Association and professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Colorado.
He also praised him for the level of detailed information generated on how much each type of drink can contribute to risk as people go through life.
A limitation of the study is that it is observational and therefore cannot establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between sugary drinks and cardiovascular disease.
Water is the best drink.
The AHA recommends that water be the best to drink throughout the day, and if you want to drink something sweeter, making a fruit smoothie is a healthier way to add more flavor without swallowing certain negative health consequences at the same time. .
Follow a heart-healthy dietary pattern, such as Mediterranean or dietary approaches to stop hypertension “with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean fish and poultry, legumes and fiber,” said Eckel.
Sugar-sweetened beverages “have a small place in these dietary patterns.”
