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Tag: Diet soda

  • How to reach age 70 free of major chronic conditions

    How to reach age 70 free of major chronic conditions

    New research reveals that people who eat healthy in midlife increase the likelihood that they will reach the age of 70 without major chronic conditions, reports Maya Goldstein for the Harvard School of Public Health. What does it mean to eat healthy?

    The Mediterranean diet is one way to go to increase your odds of living free of chronic conditions into your 70’s. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains, nuts and legumes. Avoid eating ultraprocessed foods, drinks with sugar added, salt, and refined grains. And, minimize eating meat, particularly red meat.

    Following a diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, with minimal red meat, sugar and salt, should promote both your physical and your mental health and well-being, according to researchers at the University of Copenhagen, the University of Montreal and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Their research was just published in Nature Medicine. You are more likely to be able to live independently and have a good quality of life.

    The researchers looked at the diets of 105,000 health professionals between the ages of 39 and 69 over 30 years. They studied men and women. But, they did not look at people of differing socio-economic status.

    People who ate more processed meat, drinks with sugar, diet drinks, and other ultraprocessed foods, reduced their odds of living free of chronic conditions into their 70’s. The researchers further found that a healthy diet comes in a lot of varieties. People can eat more or less of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes that they like.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Diet soda: Bad for your health and your weight

    Diet soda: Bad for your health and your weight

    According to the experts, diet soda is bad for your health and your weight, Peri Ormont Blumberg reports for Time Magazine. Notwithstanding, many Americans live on diet sodas. By so doing, they often mistakenly think they are keeping their weight down and promoting good health.

    According to recent research, however, diet drinks lead to all kinds of diseases, including cancer, mood disorders, fatty liver development and diabetes. There’s only observational studies to support these findings, which means the researchers can’t link cause and effect for sure. But, there’s mountains of long-term studies showing a correlation between drinking diet soda and poor health outcomes.

    • Type 2 diabetes strongly linked to consumption of diet soda: Many researchers find this connection. Here’s a recent study of 106,000 people.
    • Diet soda strongly linked to obesity. This meta-analysis of 11 studies found a significant association between artificially sweetened soda consumption and obesity.
    • Diet soda linked to heart conditions: People who drink more than two quarts of diet soda a week have a 20 percent higher likelihood of poor heart health, including heart attacks, heart disease and stroke. Here’s a recent study.
    • Diet soda linked to cancer. Here’s a meta-analysis. Other research has found potential links from diet soda to cancers including colon, uterine, kidney, and pancreatic, though it’s not clear whether obesity or diet soda is causing the cancer.

    No one can pinpoint why the link between diet soda and poor heart health. It could be most pronounced in people who don’t exercise, smoke, drink alcohol, and otherwise don’t take care of themselves.

    Diet soda is linked to cancer: The World Health Organization believes that aspartame, a key ingredient in some diet sodas, could be  carcinogenic. Some research has shown links between diet soda and colon, pancreatic, and kidney cancer. But, the World Health Organization somehow also found that it’s safe for people who weigh around 150 pounds to drink eight cans of diet soda with aspartame a day!!!! You wonder whether it is being sincere or is worried about a lawsuit from the diet soda manufacturers.

    Diet soda is linked to weight gain: Some researchers suggest that, because diet soda tends to be sweeter than sugar, it could change the way people experience tastes. As a result, it could make people feel hungrier, causing them to consume more calories and to gain weight. People should not think that drinking diet soda helps with weight loss.

    Should you drink diet soda? No. It is far better to drink water than diet soda. And, if you need your soda to be sweet, drink soda water with a bit of honey or juice in it. That said, some researchers believe that if you must drink prepackaged soda, diet soda could be preferable to sugary soda and alcohol for your health and your teeth. We know how harmful sugar can be; but, for some reason, we are not as clear about the harms of artificial sweeteners.

    Tricks to limit your diet soda intake:

    • Take a sip and pour the rest down the drain.
    • Think of it like candy, not like an alternative to water when you sit down to a meal.
    • Drink seltzer water with some fruit juice or honey added.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Live longer, avoid sugary and diet sodas

    Live longer, avoid sugary and diet sodas

    Live longer, avoid sugary and diet sodas! CNN reports that a 19-year study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that people who drank as few as two glasses (16 ounces) of soda a day, including diet soda, had a greater chance of dying from any cause than people who drank fewer than 12 glasses of soda a year.

    The 451,743 study participants from 10 European countries were in good health at the outset, without signs of cancer, diabetes, heart disease or stroke. But, after 19 years of drinking sugar-sweetened sodas, including diluted syrups, both men and women had a greater risk of dying from digestive disorders than people who did not. It goes without saying that consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks also leads to weight gain and obesity.

    Men and women who drank diet drinks over 19 years had a greater risk of dying from circulatory diseases such as cardiovascular disease. The long-term physiological and health consequences of drinking artificially-sweetened drinks is unknown.

    People who drank as little as 16 fluid ounces of soft drinks a day also had an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. Of note, they did not have an increased risk of deaths from breast or prostate cancer. But, drinking one or more eight-ounce soft drinks a day–sugar-sweetened and artificially-sweetened–was associated with more colorectal cancer deaths than drinking fewer than one glass a month. That said, the researchers could not determine whether the sugary or artificially-sweetened drinks were factors in this association. N.B. A July 2019 study published in BMJ did show an 18 percent higher risk of overall cancer and a 22 percent higher risk of breast cancer from drinking as little as a third of a can of soda a day.

    The researchers also found that people who drank more than one glass of diet soda a month but fewer than two a day had a greater risk of disease than those who did not.

    The JAMA study was an observational study. It does not show that drinking soft drinks necessarily increases risk of death. Other studies in the US have shown associations between diet sodas and stroke, dementia and Type 2 diabetes.

    If you want to reduce your soft drink intake, consider doing so gradually rather than going cold turkey. You have a greater likelihood of success. You might try substituting ice water for soft drinks. And, if you like carbonated drinks, you can substitute soda water for soft drinks. For extra flavor, you can add a small amount of juice to the soda water.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • If you need nutrition counseling, Medicare may cover it in full

    If you need nutrition counseling, Medicare may cover it in full

    As we all know, what we eat can affect our health in all kinds of ways. And, for the 15 million people with Medicare who have diabetes or kidney conditions, this is all the more true. To help people with diabetes or kidney disease learn to eat right, Medicare covers nutrition counseling in full. (Medicare also covers weight counseling.)

    If you have diabetes, chronic renal disease or have had a kidney transplant and want medical nutrition counseling, so long as you see a doctor, registered dietician, or other Medicare-qualified nutrition professional who “takes assignment”–accepts Medicare’s approved amount as payment in full–you will have no out-of-pocket costs. And, if you’re in a Medicare Advantage plan, so long as you see an in-network provider—you will have no copays, coinsurance or other out-of-pocket costs either.

    Few people with Medicare or their physicians appear to know about the nutrition-counseling benefit even though the benefit has been available since 2002. Only a small fraction of people with Medicare take advantage of it. Kaiser Health News reports that just 100,000 people with traditional Medicare received nutrition counseling in 2017. There’s no data as to whether any of the 20 million people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans are getting this benefit.

    To benefit from Medicare coverage of dietary counseling, speak with your doctor. You will need a referral from your doctor to a registered dietician or qualified nutrition specialist. Medicare generally pays for three hours of dietary counseling during the first year you receive counseling. Medicare pays for an additional two hours of counseling every year afterwards.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Diet Soda, No Solution for Weight Loss

    Diet Soda, No Solution for Weight Loss

    A recent study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that diet soda is no solution for weight loss. Overweight adults who drink diet soda end up consuming more calories from solid foods than overweight adults who drink sugar-sweetened drinks.

    Interestingly, the researchers found that healthy-weight adults who drank diet soda did not consume more calories from solid foods.  Drinking diet drinks helped them maintain their weight.

    The study looked at data of almost 24,000 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Survey between 1999 and 2010.