Heavy consumers of drinks enriched with artificial sugars are as likely to suffer from heart problems as those who drink traditional sugary drinks.
- Heavy consumers of drinks with artificial sugars are at as much risk of cardiovascular disease as those who drink traditional sugary drinks
- Study authors say drinks with artificial sugars cannot be substitutes for naturally sweetened drinks
Use “light” is not better for your health, a new study proves it. French researchers find that drinks with artificial sugars, commonly called “lightened” Where “light“, increase the risk of cardiovascular problems as much as sugary drinks”classics“. The scientific work was published in the form of a research letter in Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
A study carried out using data from Nutrinet Santé
This scientific research was carried out using data from the Nutrinet Santé cohort: a vast epidemiological study on diet and health, carried out solely via the internet, launched in 2009. For this recent work, the researchers worked on the responses of 104 760 people: they filled in what they ate for 24 hours, on several occasions. The research team looked at their consumption of drinks containing artificial sugars, i.e. drinks with calorie-free sweeteners and drinks containing at least 5% of “true” sugar. Synthetic sweeteners can sweeten products, such as drinks, with little or no added calories to the preparation. One of the best known is aspartame. According to their answers, the scientists divided the participants into three categories: non-consumer, small consumer or heavy consumer.
Similar risks
People were followed between 2009 and 2019: to avoid bias, the researchers focused on participants’ cardiovascular health from 2012. They looked for cases of heart attack, myocardial infarction, angioplasty, acute coronary syndrome and transient cerebral ischemia. A total of 1,379 patients suffered from one of these pathologies. Analysis of the data shows that heavy consumers of sugary drinks, whether sweeteners or real sugar, had a much higher risk of having heart problems compared to people who did not consume them. “Our study suggests artificially sweetened drinks may not be a healthy substitute for sugary drinks“, explains Eloi Chazelas, the main author of the study, member of the nutritional epidemiology research team (Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Inserm, Inrae, Cnam).
In 2019, American researchers came to the same conclusion. In a study of 81,000 postmenopausal women, they found that the more drinks they drank with fake sugars, the higher their risk of stroke. These products enriched with fake sugars are also suspected of increasing the feeling of hunger and degrading the intestinal microbe.
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