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ATLANTA – Drinking two liters or more per week of artificially sweetened beverages (the equivalent of one fast-food medium-sized diet soda per day) increased the risk of an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation by 20% compared to people who They didn’t drink anything. to new study found.
Known as atrial fibrillation, AFib is an irregular heartbeat that many people often describe as a “shaking,” “fluttering,” or “twirling” of the heart in the chest.
Drinking a similar amount of beverages with added sugar increased the risk of the condition by 10 percent, while drinking about 4 ounces of pure, unsweetened juices, such as orange or vegetable juice, was associated with an 8 percent risk. percent lower rate of atrial fibrillation, according to the study. study found.
“This is the first study to report an association between low and no-calorie sweeteners and also sugar-sweetened beverages and an increased risk of atrial fibrillation,” said Penny Kris-Etherton, professor emeritus of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University. . in a sentence. She was not involved in the new study.
While the study could only show an association between sweetened beverages and AF, the relationship held after taking into account any genetic susceptibility to the condition. TO study 2017 It found that people of European ancestry had about a 22% risk of inheriting the condition.
“We still need more research on these drinks to confirm these findings and fully understand the full health consequences of heart disease and other health conditions,” said Kris-Etherton, who is also a member of the American Health Association’s nutrition committee. Heart.
“In the meantime, water is the best option and, according to this study, low- or no-calorie sweetened beverages should be limited or avoided,” he added.
Atrial fibrillation is dangerous and on the rise
Atrial fibrillation is the leading cause of stroke in the United States. Additionally, AF-related strokes tend to be “more severe than strokes with other underlying causes,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Atrial fibrillation can also cause blood clots, heart failure and “can increase the risk of heart attack, dementia and kidney disease. All of those things are likely long-term risks,” said Dr. Gregory Marcus, professor of medicine. of the University. of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and associate chief of cardiology for research at UCSF Health, told CNN.
Nearly 40 million people worldwide live with atrial fibrillation, 6 million of them in the United States alone, according to the Heart Rhythm Society, which represents more than 7,000 heart rhythm disorders specialists from more than 90 countries.
Many of these people suffer from chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath, and fatigue. But for others, AF has no symptoms and is potentially a silent killer. However, once detected, the condition can be treated with medications, lifestyle changes, and, if necessary, surgeries to slow or restore the heart’s normal rhythm.
The rate of atrial fibrillation in the US population is growing: the CDC estimates that about 12 million Americans will have AF by 2030.
“Age is one of the biggest risk factors, so with the aging population it’s becoming more common,” Marcus said.
The obesity epidemic is also contributing to the rising numbers, along with other risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, smoking and alcohol consumption.
“Previous research has shown that high soft drink consumption is associated with an increased risk of (atrial fibrillation),” Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, said in a statement. He was not involved in the new study.
“It is well known that the risk (of atrial fibrillation) is associated with type 2 diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption (commonly called party heart), as well as illicit drug use (cocaine),” Sattar said.
Possible ‘additional health risks’
The study, published on tuesday in the journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, analyzed data from nearly 202,000 people participating in a large biomedical database called UK Biobank. Followed for an average of 10 years, people in the analysis ranged in age from 37 to 73, and more than half were women.
The highest consumers of artificially sweetened beverages were more likely to be female, younger, weigh more and have a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes, the study found. Those who drank more sugary drinks were more likely to be male, younger, weigh more and have a higher prevalence of heart disease.
People who drank both sugar-sweetened beverages and pure juice were “more likely to have higher total sugar intake than those who drank artificially sweetened beverages,” according to the release.
“The findings of our study cannot definitively conclude that one beverage poses more health risk than another due to the complexity of our diets and that some people may drink more than one type of beverage,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Dr. Ningjian Wang, professor at the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital and Shanghai Jiao Tong University College of Medicine in Shanghai, China.
“However, based on these findings, we recommend that people reduce or even avoid artificially sweetened and sugary beverages whenever possible,” Wang said in the statement. “Don’t assume that drinking artificially sweetened beverages low in sugar and calories is healthy; they may pose potential health risks.”