A new study found evidence that increasing diet soda intake was linked to higher rates of abdominal obesity in adults over the age of 65.
The findings suggest diet soda could be a contributor to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases, Wiley reported. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of risk factors that can lead to dangerous conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart disease. Obesity is believed to be a major factor in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome.
Many U.S. adults turn to "diet" food items in an effort to lose weight, and the intake of these products is believed to have significantly increased over the past three decades. Despite these efforts, the obesity epidemic has also grown over the past 30 years. Past studies have tended to focus on middle age and younger adults, but this new study takes a new approach.
"Our study seeks to fill the age gap by exploring the adverse health effects of diet soda intake in individuals 65 years of age and older," said lead author Sharon Fowler, MPH, from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. "The burden of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, along with healthcare costs, is great in the ever-increasing senior population."
To make their findings, the researchers looked at The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), which consisted of 749 Mexican- and European-Americans who were aged 65 and older at the beginning of the study. The data included "diet soda intake, waist circumference, height, and weight" assessments taken on four occasions between 1992 and 2004.
The findings suggested that diet soda was associated with an increase in waist circumference, and the measurements seen in diet soda drinkers almost tripled when compared with non-users.
"The SALSA study shows that increasing diet soda intake was associated with escalating abdominal obesity, which may increase cardiometabolic risk in older adults," Fowler concluded
The authors recommend that older individuals who drink diet soda daily should consider finding ways to decrease their intake.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
