Diet pop tied to heart attack, stroke risks: Study

Diet pop may benefit the waistline, but a new study suggests that people who drink it every day have a heightened risk of heart attack and stroke. The study, which followed almost 2,600 older adults for a decade, found that those who drank diet pop every day were 44 per cent more likely than non-drinkers to suffer a heart attack or stroke. The findings, reported in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, don't prove that the sugar-free drinks are actually to blame. There may be other things about diet-pop lovers that explain the connection, researchers say. "What we saw was an association," said lead researcher Hannah Gardener, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "These people may tend to have more unhealthy habits." She and her colleagues tried to account for that, Gardener told Reuters Health. Daily diet-pop drinkers did tend to be heavier and more often have heart risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes and unhealthy cholesterol levels. That all suggests that people who were trying to shed pounds or manage existing health problems often opted for a diet pop over the sugar-laden variety