While most people love soda there is no denying that it’s definitely not healthy. There are downsides to traditional soda as well as diet that usually go seemingly overlooked by those who drink them.
A recent study from September of this year has revealed something quite concerning overall regarding soda and our consumption of it that everyone needs to know about. This study titled ‘Consumption and Mortality in 10 European Countries’ was published in the journal JAMA and suggests that drinking sodas could put your in your grave earlier than expected. The more you drink the higher your risks and with such a big group of people participating in these findings are hard to argue with.
This study has 451743 participants from 10 different countries within Europe. They took into consideration the amount of soda that each took in, whether they were artificially sweetened or not, and other things of the sort all the while reaching some interesting conclusions. When it comes to a person’s risk of ‘all-cause’ or ’cause-specific’ mortality soft drinks can be associated with a greater risk.
The results of this study make it clear that as a whole we the public need to make strides to reduce our intake of soft drinks to better our health and live longer lives. These findings note that consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks can be positively associated with deaths from circulatory diseases and sugar-sweetened soft drinks associated with deaths from digestive diseases. This kind of thing is nothing to laugh about and is a very serious issue in the world today. According to The New York Times, 60 percent of children and 50 percent of adults drink soda on any given day which means at least half of us are drinking ourselves into an early grave if you really think about it.
The results listed on the abstract of this study go as follows:
In total, 521 330 individuals were enrolled. Of this total, 451 743 (86.7%) were included in the study, with a mean (SD) age of 50.8 (9.8) years and with 321 081 women (71.1%). During a mean (range) follow-up of 16.4 (11.1 in Greece to 19.2 in France) years, 41 693 deaths occurred. Higher all-cause mortality was found among participants who consumed 2 or more glasses per day (vs consumers of <1 glass per month) of total soft drinks (hazard ratio [HR], 1.17; 95% CI, 1.11-1.22; P < .001), sugar-sweetened soft drinks (HR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.01-1.16; P = .004), and artificially sweetened soft drinks (HR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.16-1.35; P < .001). Positive associations were also observed between artificially sweetened soft drinks and deaths from circulatory diseases (≥2 glasses per day vs <1 glass per month; HR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.30-1.78; P < .001) and between sugar-sweetened soft drinks and deaths from digestive diseases (≥1 glass per day vs <1 glass per month; HR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.24-2.05; P < .001).
For more information on the dangers that can be associated with soft drink consumption please check out the video below. While it might only shave a little time off of your life, our lives are already pretty short. We can only hope more research on this topic and others of the sort will be done so that we can better understand this kind of thing in the future.