What do heart disease, stroke, cancer, obesity, tooth decay, osteoporosis, diabetes, and dementia have in common? It may surprise you to know that all of these health problems have been linked to the excess consumption of soft drinks. Unless fortified, soft drinks contain little or no vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, or other essential nutrients, and often displace other healthier choices in people’s diets, such as water, milk and tea. What they do contain—simple sugars or sugar substitutes, carbonation, caffeine, and often food additives such as artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives—are the real troublemakers, directly or indirectly contributing to a wide array of illnesses, some of which are listed above. But results of a new study suggest that drinking just two artificially sweetened soft drinks a day can result in an increased risk of declining kidney function; a finding that may change the way we view excess when it comes to sodas.
The study, conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, examined the effects of sodium and artificial sweeteners on kidney function among 3,256 women, median age of 67, who were already participating in the Nurses’ Health Study. The participants submitted food questionnaires that asked about their average beverage intake—whether they drank beverages less than once a month, one to four times a month, two to six times weekly, once daily but less than twice, or twice a day or more often, and whether the beverage was sugar sweetened or artificially sweetened soda.
When the researchers compared the kidney function of the women, they found that 372 had a 30 percent or more decline in kidney function. Further analysis of the diet information revealed that the decline was associated with drinking two or more artificially sweetened soft drinks a day. This held true even after considering other factors, such as age, physical activity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Researcher Dr. Julie Lin, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a staff physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said, “Thirty percent is considered significant,” especially since most of the participants had well-preserved kidney function at the beginning of the study.
Higher dietary sodium intake was also found to be associated with a greater kidney function decline, but no link was found with less than two artificially sweetened sodas or with the sugar-sweetened beverages.
Dr. Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition for Washington University, St. Louis, says the link found “calls for more studies where actual intake can be assessed, rather than taking the information from food frequency questionnaires, which could be subject to mistakes.” She also wonders if the link might have come about because of long-term consumption, as many of the participants were older adults. Regardless of the mechanism, she says diet drinks are “generally low in important health-promoting nutrients, so keeping them as a small part of your eating plan would be a smart step.”
Many health experts say the problem is that people don’t always drink their sodas in moderation. Calories from beverages make up 21 percent of the total daily calories consumed by Americans over 2 years old, predominantly soft drinks and fruit drinks with added sugars, according to a 2004 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “Many people either forget or don’t realize how many extra calories they consume in what they drink, yet beverages are a major contributor to the alarming increase in obesity,” said Dr. Barry Popkin, director of the University of North Carolina Interdisciplinary Obesity Program.
In 2006, a panel of experts assembled by Popkin published a “Beverage Guidance System,” which recommended people should drink more water and limit or eliminate high-calorie beverages with little or no nutritional value. The panel emphasized the need for children and teenagers to drink more milk. “Fortified soy milk is a good alternative for individuals who prefer not to consume cow milk,” the panel said.
The study, “Associations of Sweetened Beverages with Kidney Function Decline,” was presented last week at the American Society of Nephrology’s annual conference in San Diego, California.
http://www.healthnews.com/nutrition-diet/excess-diet-soda-consumption-increases-risk-health-problems-3821.html
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