Less use of fizzy drinks reduces heart disease, stroke risk
By IANSTuesday, May 25, 2010
LONDON - Cutting down on the use of soft drinks can reduce the risk of a stroke by eight percent and coronary heart disease by five percent, reveals a new study.
“Our findings suggest that reducing sugar-sweetened beverages and sugar consumption may be an important dietary strategy to lower blood pressure and further reduce other blood pressure-related diseases,” telegraph.co.uk quoted Liwei Chen as saying.
Chen is lead author of the study and assistant professor at Louisiana State University Health Science Center-School of Public Health in New Orleans.
“It has been estimated that a 3-millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) reduction in systolic blood pressure should reduce stroke mortality by eight percent and coronary heart disease mortality by five percent. Such reductions in systolic blood pressure would be anticipated by reducing sugar-sweetened beverages consumption by an average of two servings per day,” said Chen.
Chen says though the study was conducted among mostly overweight adults and many with hypertension, others will benefit by reducing the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
“However, such evidence from humans is lacking, and we plan to conduct such research among non-hypertensive individuals,” he said.
The findings were published in “Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association”.
