take it too hard there's a new study
that might make you think twice about
drinking diet soda while it's marketed
as being better for you and your heart
rather than regular soda a new study by
the American Heart Association found
drinking diet can increase the risk of
clot based strokes heart attacks and
early death in women 50 and older here
with some advice to keep our hearts
healthy is dr. Anthony Magna know he's a
cardiologist at st. Vincent's Riverside
thank you so much for taking the time on
this Sunday to come in and talk about
heart health and soda what folks were
you picking up a can of pop or coke what
do we call it down here in this out
something like diet pop or diet coke you
know I'm thinking back to my childhood I
remember my grandparents and
great-grandparents even my parents
always picking up the diet version of
the soda thank you it is healthier for
you right yeah so well it seems like
there are some concerns and this current
study is about the fourth or fifth many
of these have concentrated on women this
is more women in the 50 to 70 age group
who were followed longitudinally for
about 12 years in this study I was a
population of eighty one thousand in the
women's health initiative observational
study and they found that about 5% of
these are about four thousand I the
eighty thousand drank two or more diet
beverages or artificial sweetened
beverages per day and if she's watching
and in those people more so than the
people who drank lesser amounts when you
looked at the people who drink more than
two versus none there was a higher rate
of stroke heart attack and overall
mortality so the stroke and heart
attacks rates were about 25-30 percent
higher and the overall rate of death was
about 16% higher now again I'm sure this
goes back to our favorite M word and
that is moderation it really does for
sure if you looked at the population
there was definitely a lot of other
differences in the group that drank two
or more beverages every day right so
they had more obesity rates they had
higher rates of diabetes there was
higher rates of smoking less activity
more
calorie intake so the groups aren't the
same but then statisticians try to
adjust for all those known variables but
there are still some sort of X factors
that are hard to adjust for when we hear
the word artificial sweeteners we often
or sometimes think that that could be
healthier right so there's so there's
regular sweeteners or sugar based
sweating and sweeteners and they
definitely have a couple risks like
weight gain is a concern or high glucose
and diabetics so then there have been
artificial sweeteners which go all the
way back literally to the 1800s when
saccharin was first identified and now
there are five FDA approved artificial
sweeteners and we know them by different
names like nutrasweet or sweetened low
or Splenda and then there's one low
calorie which is stiva and so those
sweeteners are what are available and
they've been deemed deemed generally
regarded as safe by the FDA so they've
been approved that they don't imminently
cause you the enhancer they're not
direct carcinogens and so forth but
those are the ones that are approved and
then the question is over long periods
of time at high levels are there other
adverse metabolic effects of tasting the
sweet but not having an energy load
follow it interesting at least 80% of
cardiac events are preventable that's
definitely true and we would divide the
cardiac events we see as those of sort
of bad luck or misfortune and that
definitely happens in people who are
really healthy but about 80% you could
attribute to lifestyle and other cardiac
risk factors are really controllable so
wrapping up this conversation from your
standpoint as a cardiologist what would
be your recommendations to people going
grocery shopping and looking for those
deals on diet soda life changes what are
your recommendations
well diet soda definitely is a concern
because again the body is tasting sweet
you have the perception you haven't had
calories there's the likelihood that you
might want to eat other things to make
up for the fact that you didn't use any
calories on your beverage it also may
stimulate appetite and get us to eat
more and it may read increased glucose
levels by binding to receptors in our
body that stimulate insulin secretion so
I would minimize many
or remove altogether if you can they
artificial sweeteners from your diet you
heard it right here from the doctor and
if you are having heart health issues
seek medical attention immediately call
911 if that's an option where you are
that's right doctor thank you so much
thank you Zach