Diet Soft Drinks Don’t Increase Diabetes Risk

While regular consumption of soft drinks and other sugary drinks can increase a person’s risk of diabetes, drinking diet soda or artificially sweetened beverages does not, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Harvard researchers analyzed data from 40,389 healthy men who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-Up study. They filled out questionnaires on their medical status and dietary habits, including how many servings of their average intakes of sugar-sweetened (sodas, fruit punches, lemonades, fruit drinks) and artificially sweetened (diet sodas, diet drinks) beverages they consumed on a weekly basis.

About 7 percent of the participants were diagnosed with diabetes at some point during the 20-year study. Men who drank the most sugar-sweetened beverages—one serving a day—were 16 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than men who never drank sugary beverages. The link was mostly due to soda and other carbonated beverages, and drinking non-carbonated sugar-sweetened fruit drinks such as lemonade was not linked with a higher risk of diabetes. When nothing else was accounted for, men who drank large amounts of diet soda and other diet drinks also had an increased diabetes risk, however, once researchers took into account men's weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol, those drinks were not related to diabetes risk.

Replacing one serving of sugar-sweetened beverage with one cup coffee daily was associated with a 17-percent risk reduction.

Sources:

* Reuters: Diet soda doesn't raise diabetes risk: study