Daily Sugary Drinks Raise Heart Disease Risk In Males

More about risk factors, nothing about actual outcomes.

Beverages with sugar added raise a man's risk of developing heart disease by 20% if he drinks one per day, while their equivalent "diet" drinks seem not to, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health reported in the journal Circulation. They defined one drink as a 12-ounce portion.

Risk factors linked to heart disease include poor diet, obesity, family history of heart disease, regular tobacco smoking, not enough exercise, high alcohol consumption, and diabetes. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the largest cause of death in America...

The authors say that after taking into account all heart disease risk factors, the increased risk still persisted. They gathered data on 42,883 males in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study...

They also found that everyday sugary beverage drinkers had higher C-reactive protein (CRP), triglyceride and lower HDL blood levels - all biomarkers or indicators for heart disease.

People who regularly consumed "diet" drinks - artificially sweetened drinks - were not found to have higher heart disease risk, or raised biomarkers for heart disease.

The authors stressed that the health habits of the men in their study may be different from the general population's. They added that a study on women, with data gathered from the 2009 Nurses' Health Study, produced similar findings.

Actual outcome data remain to be gathered.