Artificially sweetened drinks, so called soft drinks in Nigeria are now officially killers, according to finding published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
In the new wide-ranging study, it was found that increased consumption in soft drinks – both containing sugar and artificially sweetened (soda) – was linked with an increased risk of death from all causes in a study of 452,000 people in 10 European countries.
It is the largest study ever to examine the link between soda and death.
The study, found that two glasses a day was associated with a higher risk of death from all ailments versus people who drank less than one glass per month.
Not only was soda linked to an increased risk of death, but it was also associated with various diseases.
The study found a difference in the type of disease depending on whether you drank sugar beverages or beverages that were artificially sweetened.
A higher risk of death from circulatory diseases was linked with drinking two or more glasses daily of artificially sweetened soft drinks.
There is a higher risk of death from digestive diseases associated with drinking one or more glass daily of sugar-sweetened soft drinks.
Drinking increased amounts of both sugary and sugar-free soft drinks was associated with the risk of death from Parkinson’s disease.
The study used data, including soft drink consumption, collected on food questionnaires and in interviews between 1992 and 2000. The researchers followed up with the participants an average of 16 years later. Study participants were in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.
These findings of this study are similar with a previous study recently published by Harvard researchers in the journal Circulation that found that people who drink two or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day – whether it’s a soda, a sports drink, or any other sweet beverage – have a 31% higher risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease.
Sweetened drinks are the biggest source of added sugar in Americans’ diets, according to the American Heart Association
Lead by Neil Murphy, Ph.D., of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, co-authored the study, some 50 researchers authored the study.