Research
Mixed
High consumption of artificially-sweetened beverages (ASBs) is not significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk in physically active individuals.
If you are physically active, drinking two or more artificially-sweetened beverages a day does not appear to increase your cardiovascular disease risk in this study. However, this does not mean they are 'healthy,' and they should not be relied upon as a primary health strategy.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
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 with rigorous adjustment, 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
cohort · n=105148Cited 3×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- High consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (≥2 servings/day) increases cardiovascular disease risk by 15% even in individuals who meet physical activity guidelines.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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