WHO: Two Glasses Of Diet Sugary Drinks A Day Increases Risk Of Premature Death

WHO: two glasses of diet sugary drinks a day increases risk of premature death

Drinking as little as two glasses of dietary (sugar substitute) soft drinks a day increases your risk of early death.

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A study by the World Health Organization found that drinking as little as two glasses of dietary (sugar substitute) soft drinks a day increases the risk of early death. The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, is the largest study ever investigating the relationship between soft drink consumption and mortality.

The study involved over 450,000 adults from 10 countries. The results showed that daily consumption of any type of diet soft drink is associated with an increased likelihood of death among young people. Those who drank artificially sweetened (dietary) beverages had significantly higher mortality rates than those who drank sugar-containing beverages.

Scientists at the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer said it would be prudent to cut all sugary drinks from the diet and just drink water instead. The authors also say that taxing sugar-laden beverages may increase consumption of diet drinks, and the long-term health effects of drinking them are still unknown. The study also found that the association between diet drinks and mortality rates persists among healthy weight people.

According to experts who spoke at the recent Congress of the European Society of Cardiology in Paris, people should exclude from their diet drinks with both sugar and its substitutes. The study found that those who consumed two or more glasses (250 ml) of the diet drink per day had a 26% higher risk of dying over the next 16 years. At the same time, mortality from cardiovascular diseases increased by 52%. For those who drank two or more sugar-containing soft drinks per day, the risk of death was 8% higher over the same period.

Study leader Dr. Neil Murphy says they have found an association with the risk of death from all causes, both with sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks. It is not yet clear exactly why this is happening, he said, but previous research has suggested that artificial sweeteners in diet drinks can cause glucose intolerance and increase blood insulin levels. Scientists now intend to study the long-term health effects of specific sweeteners used in soft drinks, such as aspartame and acesulfame potassium. Scientists have also raised concerns about policies that are forcing people to switch from drinking sugar-containing drinks to diet drinks that use low-calorie sweeteners.

“The main message of this work is to drink water. Be sure to avoid sugary drinks and be careful with artificially sweetened drinks. Water is the safest thing. Tea and coffee are fine too. But we need to minimize or stop consuming processed drinks,”Professor Mitchell Elkind, president of the American Heart Association, told the Paris convention.