Mixed
High consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (≥2 servings/day) increases cardiovascular disease risk by 15% even in individuals who meet physical activity guidelines.
If you drink two or more sugary beverages a day, your cardiovascular risk remains elevated even if you exercise regularly. While exercise is crucial for health, it does not completely cancel out the negative effects of high sugar intake. To minimize heart disease risk, limit sugary drinks regardless of your activity level.
Our findings suggest that among physically active participants, higher SSB intake, but not ASBs, is associated with a higher cardiovascular risk.
Why this rating
Large prospective cohorts (NHS and HPFS) with long follow-up and rigorous adjustment for confounders, but observational design limits causal inference.
Source
Sugar- or artificially-sweetened beverage consumption, physical activity, and risk of cardiovascular disease in US adults
Lorena S. Pacheco et al. · medRxiv · 2023
DOI 10.1101/2023.04.17.23288711
More from this paper
- High consumption of artificially-sweetened beverages (ASBs) is not significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk in physically active individuals.Good
- Not meeting physical activity guidelines combined with high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (≥2 servings/week) is associated with a 47% higher risk of cardiovascular disease.Good
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