Researchers have established that consuming sweet drinks is worse than any other form of sugar after they registered seven different cardiovascular diseases(CVDs) 69,705 men and women.
In a study published on Monday in Frontiers, a global journal, peer-reviewed by experts from John Hopkins,Swinburne and Chittagong Universities and approved by the the Swedish Ethical Review Authority,the researchers observed that taking more sweetened drinks significantly increases the risk of ischemic stroke, heart failure,artrial fibrillation and abdominal aortic aneurism.
“The study population consisted of 69,705 participants (47.2% female), with a mean BMI of 25.3 kg/m2, mean age of 59.9 years (ranging between 45 and 83 years) and mean added sugar intake of 9.1 E% at baseline,” the researchers explained noting they had established that higher added sugar consumers tended to be male, with higher exercise levels and with lower education levels than lower added sugar consumers.
“Furthermore, those consuming high amounts of added sugar were generally older, had higher energy intakes, and had higher intakes of toppings and sweetened beverages.
The intake of treats was more evenly distributed across the added sugar intake groups than the other sugar-sweetened foods and beverages.”
During the follow-up period,they further highlighted, 25,739 participants were diagnosed with at least one CVD, including 6,912 cases of ischemic stroke, 1,664 cases of hemorrhagic stroke, 6,635 cases of myocardial infarction, 10,090 cases of heart failure, 1,872 cases of aortic stenosis, 13,167 cases of atrial fibrillation, and 1,575 cases of abdominal aortic aneurysm.
The associations between the added sugar intake and the studied outcomes were generally stronger in the first model (adjusted for age, sex, and total energy intake), but attenuated in the second model (additionally adjusted for lifestyle factors), and further attenuated in the main model (additionally adjusted for lifestyle factors, BMI, and dietary factors).
Also, the associations for sugar-sweetened beverage and artificially sweetened beverage intake were studied separately among the 42,327 participants after a dietary assessment. Among these participants, 10,843 individuals reported consumption of at least one serving/week of sugar-sweetened beverages, and 5,727 participants reported consumption of at least one serving/week of artificially sweetened beverages.
According to the experts, relationships between added sugar intake and CVD risk factors such as dyslipidaemia, hypertension, and obesity could help explain the associations found between added sugar intake and some of the studied CVDs.
Although the mentioned CVD risk factors affect all of the studied CVDs to some extent, one explanation for the findings for the different CVDs may be that the risk factors affect the diseases to varying degrees.
“For example, aortic stenosis can be caused by congenital heart defects and hemorrhagic stroke can be caused by head injuries, whereas ischemic stroke and abdominal aortic aneurysm might be more dependent on atherosclerotic processes.
This could result in the potential effect of dietary factors on disease incidence being smaller and more difficult to discern for some of the studied outcomes,”they said.
“This would however not explain the lack of associations found with for example myocardial infarction as it is also a highly atherosclerotic disease,”they pointed out while explaining why more research needs to be done.
Interestingly, their findings also indicate that not all sources of added sugar are equally harmful to health as sugar-sweetened beverages are the primary source of added sugar associated with increased CVD risk.
“Possible explanations of the discrepancies between the associations for sweetened beverages,treats and toppings include liquid calories providing lower satiety and insufficient compensatory reduction of caloric intake, thus promoting overweight and obesity, which are established risk factors for CVD,”they concluded.
This therefore means that the associations between added sugar intake and CVDs vary substantially depending on the disease and source of added sugar.
