Research Examines Soft Drink Consumption and Heart Health
A study recently presented at the American Heart Association’s (AHA’s) 2011 Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida, has suggested a link between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and incident cardiovascular (CV) risk factors in women regardless of weight gain. Christina Shay, et al., “Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and Incident Cardiovascular Risks Factors: The MultiEthnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA),” AHA 2011 Scientific Sessions, November 2011. Researchers apparently used data from approximately 4,000 adult participants enrolled in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis between 2000 and 2007, identifying during follow-up several incident CV risk factors that included (i) weight gain; (ii) increase waist circumference; (iii) low HDL, LDL and triglycerides; (iv) impaired fasting glucose; and (v) type 2 diabetes.
The results evidently indicated that, compared with consuming less than one SSB per day, intake of more than two servings per day “was significantly associated with greater risk for incident increased [waist circumference], hypertriglyceridemia and [impaired fasting glucose] among women.” According to a November 13, 2011, AHA press release, the study also surmised that women “may have a greater chance for developing cardiovascular disease risk factors from sugar-sweetened drinks because they require fewer calories than men.”
“Women who drank more than two sugar-sweetened drinks a day had increasing waist sizes, but weren’t necessarily gaining weight,” said lead author Christina Shay, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. “These women also developed high triglycerides and women with normal blood glucose levels more frequently went from having a low risk to a high risk of developing diabetes over time.”
Meanwhile, the American Beverage Association (ABA) issued a November 13, 2011, statement noting that the study failed to control for additional heart disease risk factors such as “increasing age and family history.” As a result, explained ABA, this kind of study “cannot show that drinking [SSBs] causes increased risk for cardiovascular disease. It simply looks at associations between the two, which could be the result of numerous other confounding factors… Furthermore, participants who consumed two or more [SSBs] per day at the beginning of the study already had a number of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. And while overweight or obesity are known cardiovascular disease risk factors, the evidence that one type of food or beverage causes heart disease simply is not there.”
