Just seven cans of Diet Coke per week linked to deadly heart condition, study suggests

Drinking seven or more cans of artifically sweetened beverages like diet soda could raise the risk of long-term heart issues, a new study suggests.
A newly released study out of China published in the journal, Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, found that those who did so had a 20 percent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF or a-fib) than those who didn’t.
Other similar studies have found that ultra-processed and artifically sweetened food and beverages are linked to worsened depression.
The study took place for the course of four years evaluating over 200,000 adults in the UK ranging between ages 37-73 years old who had not previously been diagnosed with a heart condition and then followed up with them 10 years later.
Atrial fibrillation, also known as afib, is an irregular heart rhythm also called an arrhythmia. While some patients are asympomatic, others report experiencing palpitations, shortness of breath and fatigue.
The condition can usually be managed with drugs, electrical shock (cardioversion) or minimally invasive surgery (ablation), according to Healthline, however it can increase likelihood of heart complications.
The condition has afflicted public figures like President Joe Biden and affects between 2.7-6.1 million Americans while contributing to the death of tens of thousands in the US and Britain every year.
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It contributes to about 454,000 hospitalizations and 158,000 deaths each year, according to the CDC.
The findings come on the heels of World Health Organization announcing that aspartame, the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke, is likely a carcinogen, meaning it can cause cancer.
However, independent experts have raised concerns about the study’s caveats due to the fact that the data is only short-term and observational.
“Our study’s findings cannot definitively conclude that one beverage poses more health risk than another due to the complexity of our diets and because some people may drink more than one type of beverage,” said Dr. Ningjian Wang, lead study author from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China.
However, the doctor “recommends” people “reduce or even avoid” artifically sweeened beverages “whenever possible,” based on the findings that it “may pose potential health risks.”
While researchers still conlucde from the study that such beverages should be avoided, they and other independent researchers also acknowledge the limitations and caveats of the study.
“Although the mechanisms linking sweetened beverages and atrial fibrillation risk are still unclear, there are several possible explanations, including insulin resistance and the body’s response to different sweeteners,” Wang said.
Insulin resistance is when the body does not respond to the hormone insulin, which causes high blood sugar. Over time, this leads to damaged blood vessels, which contribute to heart disease.
While research on artificial sweeteners is limited, sugar has long been linked to heart disease. This is because it raises blood pressure and increases harmful inflammation throughout the body.
“The limitations of this study include that the findings were observational and cannot prove causation between consumption of certain types of beverages and AFib risk,” the researchers wrote. “In addition, the findings relied on participants to recall their own diets, so there may have been memory errors or bias. It is also unknown if the sugar- and artificially sweetened drinks contained caffeine.”
Independent experts have also raised concern about the findings, citing a need for more long-term data.
“As the authors of this study themselves admit, this is observational research which, firstly, cannot prove cause, and which, secondly, involves data that could be subject to memory errors or bias from the participants,” Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said.
He added that all soft drinks are safe to consume as part of a balanced diet in moderation.
“As this type of study is observational it can only show us associations, not causation,” Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said. “We’d need more research and different types of studies to have a definitive answer.”
‘We already know that diets high in sugar are linked to high calorie diets which can cause weight gain and obesity. In turn, this increases the chances of developing type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory diseases.”