Drinking seven cans of Diet Coke a week is linked to President Joe Biden’s fatal heart condition, a study warns

Drinking seven or more cans of diet pop a week could increase the risk of heart problems in the long term, a study suggests.

Researchers in China spent four years evaluating 200,000 adults in Britain who had not previously been diagnosed with heart disease, and followed them for 10 years later.

They found that those who drank more than two liters, about seven cans, of artificially sweetened drinks such as diet soda per week had a 20 percent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation than those who did not drink them.

Atrial fibrillation, also known as afib, is an irregular heart rhythm – arrhythmia – that starts in the upper chambers of the heart. The condition, which has affected public figures such as President Joe Biden, kills tens of thousands of people every year in the US and Britain.

The findings come months after the World Health Organization deemed aspartame, the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke, a possible carcinogen, meaning it could cause cancer.

However, independent experts have raised concerns about the study’s caveats, saying the data is only short-term and observational, meaning the cause for the increase in afib cases is unclear.

Dr. Ningjian Wang, lead author of the study at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China, said: ‘The findings of our study cannot definitively conclude that one drink poses more health risks than another, due to the complexity of our diet and because some people drink more than one kind of drink.’

‘However, based on these findings, we recommend that people reduce or even avoid artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened drinks where possible.’

‘Don’t assume that drinking artificially sweetened, low-sugar, low-calorie drinks is healthy; it may pose potential health risks.”

The research team evaluated 201,856 adults in the UK Biobank database between 2006 and 2010.

The patients ranged from 37 to 73 years old and 45 percent were male.

The researchers followed the participants for an average of ten years and collected blood samples to measure their genetic risk for afib. The participants were also asked to answer a 24-hour questionnaire about their diet five times between April 2009 and April 2012.

Those who drank more than two liters of artificially sweetened drinks per day, about seven cans, had a 20 percent higher risk of developing afib than those who did not drink these drinks.

In addition, those who drank at least two liters of sugar-sweetened drinks were 10 percent more likely to be diagnosed with afib.

Meanwhile, those who consumed a liter or less of pure fruit juice had an eight percent lower risk of afib than those who did not drink it.

“Participants who consumed more artificially sweetened beverages were more likely to be female and younger, to have a higher body mass index, and to have a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes,” the team wrote.

‘Participants who consumed more sugar-sweetened beverages were more likely to be male and younger, have a higher body mass index, a higher prevalence of heart disease and a lower socio-economic status.’

The team also noted that those who drank sugar-sweetened drinks and plain fruit juice were more likely to have a higher total daily sugar intake than those who drank artificially sweetened drinks.

These new findings on the relationships between the risk of atrial fibrillation and sugar- and artificially sweetened beverages and pure juice may prompt the development of new prevention strategies by considering reducing sweetened beverages to help improve heart health, said Dr. .Wang.

‘Although the mechanisms linking sweetened beverages and the risk of atrial fibrillation are still unclear, there are several possible explanations, including insulin resistance and the body’s response to different sweeteners.’

Insulin resistance occurs when the body does not respond to the hormone insulin, which causes high blood sugar levels. Over time, high blood sugar damages blood vessels, contributing to heart disease.

Additionally, while research on artificial sweeteners is limited, sugar has long been linked to heart disease because it raises blood pressure and increases harmful inflammation throughout the body.

Although AFib itself is not fatal, it can contribute to more serious heart problems such as heart failure, because the heart is pumping so hard that it cannot pump blood to the rest of the body fast enough.

There are a number of important caveats to the study.

“The limitations of this study include that the findings were observational and cannot prove a causal relationship between the consumption of certain types of beverages and the risk of AFib,” the researchers wrote.

‘Additionally, the findings relied on participants remembering their own diet, so there may have been memory errors or biases. It is also not known whether the sugar and artificially sweetened drinks contain caffeine.’

Independent experts have also raised concerns about the findings, citing the need for more long-term data.

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: ‘As the authors of this study themselves admit, this is observational research which, firstly, cannot prove causation, and secondly, involves data that may be subject to memory error. or participant bias.”

‘All soft drinks, regardless of their ingredients, are safe to consume as part of a balanced diet, not least fruit juice, of which a 150ml serving counts as one of your 5 daily meals.’

Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘As this type of research is observational, it can only show us associations, not causation. To get a definitive answer, we need more research and different types of studies.”

‘We already know that high-sugar diets are linked to high-calorie diets, which can cause weight gain and obesity. This in turn increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.’

Dr. Duane Mellor, registered dietitian and senior lecturer at Aston University in Britain, said: ‘This study claimed that individuals who drank more than 2 liters per week had an increased risk of atrial fibrillation.’

‘However, the data on which this was based was only five separate recalls of food intake in one day, collected over the first three years of the study, so this data had to be extrapolated to estimate weekly intake.’

‘Although there is an increased risk, there is limited explanation for how sweeteners may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, so there is limited biological rationale to explain how sweetened drinks may be linked to brain health. heart.’

The research was published in the journal on Tuesday Circulation: Arrhythmia and electrophysiology.