Soda a day may lead to heart attacks in men

(CBS News) - Americans consume almost a tenth of their calories by drinking beverages packed with sugar. But, a new study out in Circulation reports that men who drink soda or other sugary substances greatly increase their risk of a heart attack.

According to Dr. Walter Willett, a co-author on the study, the typical 12-ounce soda contains about 10 teaspoons of sugar. Many people consume 20-ounces of soda in a standard sitting, which is about 15 to 18 teaspoons of sugar, a large amount in a little time.

"Continually subjecting our bodies to high amounts of glucose, to high blood sugar levels that trigger large secretions of insulin results in stresses that in the long run show up as high risk of heart disease and diabetes," Willett told CBS News medical correspondent Dr. John LaPook.

For the study, researchers enrolled 42,833 men and followed their diet, weight, smoking and exercise over 22 years. Men who drank just one 12-ounce sugar-sweetened drink a day had a 20 percent higher risk of heart attacks.

However, other doctors caution that just because there may be a link between sugary drinks and heart attacks does not mean sugar is causing them. Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic, said he suspected that the study participants may have been drinking sugary drinks with burgers and fries and other kinds of unhealthy fast foods.

"It's very likely people who choose to drink sugared soft drinks actually have a variety of health habits that are not heart healthy, and it may well be those health habits that are responsible for the increase in risk," Nissen said.

[damito28]

Eat anything that taste bad and you will live a long time. I will eat what I want in small amounts, I'm sick of all the quick study's and find out years later that they are wrong!

[FormerUSMCSergeant]

15 to 18 teaspoons of suger at one sitting.......

Sheesh.

[Lerianis4]

It's also bull, because most sodas that people drink today are? SUGARFREE! Hell, I haven't had a sugared (actually sugared, not some alternative) soda in six months. Before that, it was another 6 months.

[kainos2]

The picture CBS used to link to this article from the main headline page shows someone filling up with Diet Coke. But the article and the study only talk about increased risk from REGULAR sugared sodas. Hmmmm....

[commenter777]

If you live too long you outlive all your loved ones and go thru more heIl on earth because of getting too old. Getting old is worse than any science fiction movie that mankind can make up.

[SirDoc0388]

Reading fear mongering BS like this article on CBS or any other liberal propaganda news site will lead to more heart attacks than a soda a day.

I like how it's just "men" affected. Soda's know what sex you are now?

LOL

[NinthSt78]

BULL!

[tmittelstaed]

I'm sorry to all the vegans out there but there is very little you can do to increase your lifespan by modifying your diet, unless your body has something wrong with it(food allergy, diabetic, etc)

The key to increasing your lifespan is exercise. There are many people who exercise a lot and yet eat poor diets. Generations of farmers who have been raised on diets of read meat, eggs, poultry, bacon, ham, and large servings of pure fat, plus tons of carbohydrates like baked white bread, yet exercise all day long, have proven that it's the physical fitness that matters, not the diet.

Unfortunately modern life encourages a sedentary lifestyle and discourages exercise. Plus the fact that humanity has spread out of the warm places of the world that it evolved in, and into the cooler places, means that during the winter exercise is far more difficult, so the environment many people live in discourages it.

There has been a movement among city planners to attempt to redesign cities through zoning changes to force more exercise and less driving. But your essentially defeating the entire purpose of living in a city when you do this - ease of access and convenience - when you do this, so it hasn't been very successful.

We would probably all be a lot healthier if the standard office workday began at noon and went to 9pm, giving people just enough time to go home from work, eat, and crash. That would give people the opportunity to wake up in the morning and spend 4 hours out in the daylight walking, running and otherwise exercising. But good luck with the major television networks supporting something like that.

[Nate650]

Wow, your reasoning is completely backwards. That diet you described of red meat, eggs, poultry, bacon, ham, and large servings of pure fat, assuming they come from healthy animals, is the opposite of a poor diet. A poor diet is one that consists mainly of processed foods which are high in food chemicals, high fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, trans fats, etc.

So I'd bet the farm on the opposite argument which is that diet matters more than exercise.

[djseavy]

Wow - in once evening we've found the cure to death. Don't eat red meat or wash it down with a soda. Looks like we've found immortality!

[abby_del_abbey]

As long as people consume sugary, salty, fatty, processed, and/or fried foods they will be unhealthy. Unhealthy foods = unhealthy bodies and minds. It's common sense. Eat healthy and exercise and have a healthy life.

[Nate650]

I don't understand the point of these studies if there are so many factors involved to yield any meaningful results. It's pretty clear that processed foods aren't healthy. I find it boggling that so many different diets exist when the most obvious of all diets is to simply eat only whole foods as was the case hundreds of years ago.

[abby_del_abbey]

I agree.

[lesserof2evil]

i agree. i would like to eat a WHOLE cow in one seating :)