Researchers collected self-reported data from more than 106,000 women over the course of two decades. None of the women had been diagnosed with heart disease, stroke, or diabetes when they enrolled in the study, and all had worked in California schools. Overall, they found that women who consumed one or more sugary drinks — which included soda, energy or sports drinks, and fruit juice with added sugar — were 20 percent more likely to eventually develop cardiovascular disease or have a stroke compared with women who rarely or never drank such beverages. And the type of sugary beverage the women drank made a difference. Consuming fruit juices with added sugars, rather than 100 percent juice, increased the risk of cardiovascular disease by more than 40 percent, while drinking sugary soft drinks every day increased the risk by 23 percent. Although bottled sweetened tea and water did increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease, it wasn’t significant. Importantly, the researchers were able to adjust their findings to rule out variables other than sugar that could be contributing to heart disease. “It’s not just age or body mass index but something in addition to that related to the consumption of sugary beverages that appears to be potentially harmful to us,” says Kim Eagle, MD, the director of the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the study. According to Cheryl Anderson, PhD, MPH, a professor of family and public health at the University of California in San Diego, who led the study, sugar may cause oxidative stress and inflammation. Both conditions impact insulin resistance, which increases a person’s risk of type 2 diabetes and supports the plaque buildup that constricts the arteries — conditions that are strongly linked to heart disease. “In addition, sugary beverages raise glucose levels and insulin concentrations in the blood, which may lead to increased appetite and obesity and, in turn, a higher risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Anderson. Even so, the new research adds to a solid collection of studies that link excess sugar to poor heart health in both men and women that extends beyond weight gain. “We build our cardiovascular future meal by meal, and after eating a high sugar meal, we see an almost instant cardiovascular response as well as cumulative effects,” says Dr. Eagle.
Advice for Keeping Your Heart Healthy
According to Alice H. Lichtenstein, a senior scientist and the director of the cardiovascular nutrition team at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, in addition to the direct impact added sugar has on insulin and inflammation, sugary drink habits are often an indication of other unhealthy habits, including eating too many calories and too much fat, and not getting enough exercise, all of which increase a person’s risk of developing heart disease. Besides exercising and eating the right foods, “the best advice we can give is to choose water, including seltzer and flavored waters, over beverages with added sugar,” says Lichtenstein, who says that it may be beneficial to swap sugar for artificial sweeteners but only in moderation. A study published in March 2019 in the journal Circulation found that drinking one artificially sweetened drink daily lowered a woman’s risk of dying; drinking four or more tended to shorten her life span. According to Eagle, it’s also imperative to set children up to adopt healthy habits while they’re young. “Parents are often examples for their kids, so a parent who is consuming sugary beverages may also be serving those to children,” he says. “The effects for children may be even more profound because the health habits we have for life are usually formed in childhood and early adulthood.”
