Soft Drinks Linked To Health Risks

No Safe Diet Haven

CHICAGO — Soft drinks – even diet ones – may be linked with increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, U.S. researchers say. They found that adults who drink one or more soft drinks a day had about a 50-per-cent higher risk of metabolic syndrome – a cluster of risk factors such as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of "good" cholesterol, high blood pressure and other symptoms."When you have metabolic syndrome, your risk of developing heart disease or stroke doubles. You also have a risk of developing diabetes," said Dr. Ramachandran Vasan of Boston University School of Medicine, whose work appears in the journal Circulation.