Diet soda linked to higher heart disease risk: study

[blog editors note] Pharmacists inducing their customers to drink cheap pop -- please take note.

Written by: SHERYL UBELACKER

TORONTO (CP) - For those who drink diet pops in the belief that sugar-free beverages are healthier than regular soft drinks, new research suggests they should think again.

A huge U.S. study of middle-aged adults has found that drinking more than one soft drink a day - even a sugar-free diet brand - may be associated with an elevated risk for metabolic syndrome, a cluster of factors that significantly boosts the chance of having a heart attack or stroke and developing diabetes.

"We found that one or more sodas per day increases your risk of new-onset metabolic syndrome by about 45 per cent, and it did not seem to matter if it was regular or diet," Dr. Ramachandran Vasan, senior investigator for the Framingham Heart Study, said Monday from Boston.

Because the corn syrup that sweetens most regular soft drinks can cause weight gain and lead to insulin resistance and diabetes, "you would expect to see an association with regular soft drinks - but not diet soft drinks," he said. "Our findings suggest that this is not the case."

"That for me is striking."

Metabolic syndrome is associated with five specific health indicators: excess abdominal fat; high blood sugar; high triglycerides; low levels of the good cholesterol HDL; and elevated blood pressure.

"And other than high blood pressure, the other four . . . all were associated with drinking one or more sodas per day," said Vasan, a professor of medicine at Boston University.

The study included nearly 9,000 observations of middle-aged men and women over four years at three different times. The study looked at how many 355-millilitre cans of cola or other soft drinks a participant consumed each day.

The researchers found that compared to those who drank less than one can per day, subjects who downed one or more soft drinks daily had a:

-31 per cent greater risk of becoming obese (with a body mass index of 30 or more).

-30 per cent increased risk of adding on belly fat.

-25 per cent higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar.

-32 per cent higher risk of having low HDL levels.

But Vasan and his colleagues, whose study was published Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, are unsure what it is about soft drinks that ratchets up the risk of metabolic syndrome.

"We really don't know," he said. "This soda consumption may be a marker for a particular dietary pattern or lifestyle. Individuals who drink one or more sodas per day tend to be people who have greater caloric intake. They tend to have more of saturated fats and trans fats in their diet, they tend to be more sedentary, they seem to have lower consumption of fibre."

"And we tried to adjust for all of these in our analysis . . . but it's very difficult to completely adjust away lifestyle."

While soft drink consumption is declining in Canada, statistics from 2006 showed that Canadians overall still gulp down an average of 85 litres each per year.

Dr. David Jenkins, director of the Risk Factor Modification Centre at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, said previous studies have suggested that diet pops did not have the same effects on weight and health as do naturally sweetened soft drinks.

"The unusual thing that needs comment is they (the study authors) say that the diet colas are the same as the calorically sweetened colas," said Jenkins. "So I think that is the piece that they've put into this puzzle . . . I think we need a lot more scrutiny of that."

Jenkins said he believes that high consumption of soft drinks likely goes along with eating a high-calorie diet.

"I think the disappointing thing is if you thought you were doing (yourself) a major service . . . by taking diet drinks, this is not helping you," he said. "Before we were saying take the diet (drink) and you're OK. Now we're saying: 'Watch it."'

The study findings also beg the question whether there is some ingredient in soft drinks - both regular and diet - that may encourage metabolic syndrome.

Caramel, used to colour colas, is an ingredient that goes through a chemical reaction that has been shown in studies to "be quite toxic," said Jenkins. "It's possible that (such products) increase insulin resistance and cause oxidative stress and damage and all the other things we don't want."

Dr. Arya Sharma, chair of cardiovascular obesity research at McMaster University, said one explanation for the link between diet drinks and metabolic syndrome is that their just-as-sugary taste may condition consumers to crave other foods that bring sweetness to the palate.

"So people who drink diet pop may be eating other sweets, whether that comes in the form of dessert or other things, I don't know," Sharma said Monday from Hamilton. "It may be that people who are drinking diet pop - and we have this effect often with people who go on diets or when people go running or whatever - that you do a little bit of something that you think is good, and then you overcompensate by doing more of something that is bad."

"The idea could be because I'm drinking diet pop, I can afford to splurge on dessert."

Vasan said he cannot out-and-out recommend that people stop drinking pop based on this study, because the findings are based on association, not clear cause and effect. More research is needed, he said.

"The simple message is eat healthy, exercise regularly and everything should be done in moderation," he said. "If you're a regular soda drinker you should be aware that this study adds to the evidence that regular soda may be associated with metabolic consequences."

"If you're a diet soda drinker, stay tuned for additional research to confirm or refute these findings."

Michael Moore presents the facts in Sicko

There are nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention actually reported that 54.5 million people were uninsured for at least part of the year. Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2006. Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur200706.pdf
• The amount of uninsured is rising every year, as premiums continue to skyrocket and wages stagnate. From 2004 to 2005 the number of uninsured rose 1.3 million, and rose up nearly 6 million from 2001-2005. Leighton Ku, "Census Revises Estimates Of The Number Of Uninsured People," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 5, 2007 http://www.cbpp.org/4-5-07health.htm. With 44.8 uninsured in 2005, in 2007 the number will be much higher. Professors Todd Gilmer and Richard Kronick, in "It's The Premiums, Stupid: Projections Of The Uninsured Through 2013," Health Affairs, 10.1377/hlthaff.w5.143, "project that the number of non-elderly uninsured Americans will grow from forty-five million in 2003 to fifty-six million by 2013." According to these authors, by now the number of non-elderly uninsured by this date clearly would be nearly 50 million.

SiCKO: 18,000 Americans will die this year simply because they're uninsured.

• According to the Institute of Medicine, "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage." Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine, January 2004.
  http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175
  

Don't follow your pharmacists lead. Drink Water Instead.

Pushing Sugar? On June 22, 2007, a major drug store chain held 10 of the “best deals ever reported” for soft drinks. And here's what a thousand cases of soft drinks on the store floor looks like. Download PDF

Fortunately (ya, sure) you can go to this pharmacy chain's web site and find out how the pharmacists can help you achieve a healthy lifestyle Read this:

How bad is the abusive consumption of soft drinks? Here’s a major report on this liquid candy. Download PDF

What do our health care economists think about this? Read this: Fat Zombies, Pleistocene Tastes, Autophilia and the “Obesity Epidemic”

Canadian Healthcare: not Michael Moore's perspective

Canadian Healthcare: another perspective watch video

Filmmaker Stuart Browning provides a cautionary lesson about a politicized health care system where politicians and bureaucrats determine medical priorities. To watch the video click here.

Canadian Healthcare: not Michael Moore's perspective

Canadian Healthcare: another perspective watch video

Filmmaker Stuart Browning provides a cautionary lesson about a politicized health care system where politicians and bureaucrats determine medical priorities. To watch the video click here.

A rebuttle to "Sicko" featuring Lindsay McCreath and his wife.

watch video

Film maker Stuart Browning highlights the plight of Lindsay McCreith, an Ontario man with a cancerous brain tumor who crossed the border to the U.S. to get the medical care that is rationed in his home country. Its called: Lindsay McCreath offers a short course in brain surgery -- American style. click here.

Lindsay McCreith speaks out about his brain tumor

Healthcare Reform, Michael Moore and a three-point strategy.

Michael Moore's answer to the problems facing US healthcare policy makers? Rip the system apart, give the federal government control, create a single-payer system that takes for-profit insurance companies out of the equation and regulate pharmaceutical companies "like utilities since they're just as important as electricity and water."

He's got friends. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have all proposed radical overhauls of the health-care industry, with the goal of covering more Americans and lowering costs. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has also laid out a plan for remaking California's health system, in the wake of a similar move by Massachusetts.

The proposal from Obama (D-Ill.) came on May 29 in a speech at the University of Iowa, where he outlined a $50 billion-a-year universal health-care plan for all Americans that would increase taxes on the wealthy and require virtually all employers to offer insurance to workers or face tax penalties.

(source: www.michaelmore.com)

Michael Moore, Lindsay McCreith and the Wall Street Journal

June 28, 2007
Health Care in Canada: What a Great Model

A view of Michael Moore's new propaganda film from a Canadian perspective. From today's Wall Street Journal

TORONTO--"I haven't seen 'Sicko,' " says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine for the United States. The film, which has been widely viewed on the Internet, and which will officially open in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, has been getting rave reviews. But Ms. Allen, a lawyer, has no plans to watch it. She's just too busy preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system next month.

Her client, Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead, frustrated and ill, the retired auto-body shop owner traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care, which he considers dangerous.

Ms. Allen figures the lawsuit has a fighting chance: In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that "access to wait lists is not access to health care," striking down key Quebec laws that prohibited private medicine and private health insurance.

Elsewhere, the AFL-CIO aligns itself with Michael Moore and socialism. (Yes, yes. We know it's considered bad manners and politically crude to refer to socialism in these debates. But what else do you call eliminating the private sector from health care? Universal coverage? That may describe the end, but it certainly doesn't describe the system.)

Lawsuit Aimed at Stopping Junk-Food Marketing to Children

Kellogg Company Makes Historic Commitment, Adopting Nutrition Standards For Marketing Foods To Children

Advocacy Groups and Parents Applaud Efforts, Drop Plans to Sue

WASHINGTON: Kellogg Company will adopt nutrition standards for the foods it advertises to young children, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), and two Massachusetts parents will not proceed with a lawsuit against the company.

Foods advertised on media including TV, radio, print, and third-party Web sites that have an audience of 50 percent or more children under age 12 will have to meet Kellogg's new nutrition standards, which require that one serving of the food has: (for more information click on the title of this posting)