Does Soda Raise Your Cholesterol? Healthy Drinking Habits!

Nowadays having high cholesterol is common but serious. You will face this kind of problem when you get older.

It is recommended that people whose ages are between 45-65 get cholesterol screenings every 1 or 2 years, after that once a year at least after 65.

Daily Use Of Soda – How Does It Affect Your Health?

If you are not serious about this problem, it may lead to clogged arteries and heart disease. Luckily, there are some things you can do to maintain healthy levels of cholesterol like regular exercise and consuming healthy foods and drinking habits.

Read on to know about certain drinks you may need to avoid if you do not want high cholesterol.

What Do Researchers Say?

According to the research of February 2020, Soda can play havoc with your cholesterol and triglyceride levels which causes to increase your risk for heart disease and stroke.

As per the report research, if you drink more than one can of soda or fruit drinks a day it does not bode well for your cardiovascular health.

Before consuming this kind of drink, please think about your health because there is a lot of evidence linking soda to adverse health outcomes, said lead researcher Nicola Mckeown who is a nutritional epidemiologist at the Jean Mayer U.S.D.A Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

According to the researchers, drinks including sports drinks, soda, and fruit-flavored drinks are the biggest source of added sugars for Americans. According to McKeown, efforts and policies aimed at decreasing sugar beverage intake should continue.

When it comes to substituting beverages, they need more information about what people put into their glasses and how that may make a difference in our health whether it is positive or negative.

McKeown and his team also found that if you drink more than one can of sugary drinks a day was linked to 53% higher odds of high triglycerides and 98% higher odds of low HDL cholesterol compared with drinking less.

The findings came from data on nearly six thousand people who took part in the offspring and generation three Framingham heart study. People were followed for more than 12 years between 1991 and 2014.

Neither 100% fruit juice nor low-calorie sweetened drinks were associated with native changes in cholesterol, as reported by the researchers. McKeown further said that does not mean they would recommend drinking a lot of diet soda or fruit juice as an alternative. Because the research on the subject is still developing and for now it is inconclusive.

According to the report, soda beverage drinkers had a 98% higher chance of developing low HDL and a 53% higher chance of developing high triglycerides. This is good news for diet soda drinkers. The average consumption of soda was not associated with changes in cholesterol concentrations.

The Connection Between Diet Soda And Cholesterol

This may be a good solution to swap out regular soda for diet soda. The soda does not contain any calories, carbohydrates, or fructose. But it is very unfortunate that artificial sweeteners in diet soda that are used to replicate the sweet taste of fructose are not much better.

One study that was published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition in April of 2017 found an artificial sweetener used to sweeten some of the most popular soda brands can increase LDL cholesterol even without a change in weight or other parameters such as total cholesterol.

A study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in August of 2018 points out that artificial sweeteners could increase triglycerides which is another significant lipid to consider when it comes to heart disease. That study also linked artificial sweeteners to increased waist circumference and higher glucose levels, 2 factors involved in metabolic syndrome.

Healthy Drinks To Replace Soda:

All we know is that water tops the list when it comes to healthy drinks to replace soda. If you drink a large amount of water, it will help to carry oxygen and nutrients to your cells.

But if you are searching for something other than plain water, several health drinks won’t negatively affect your cholesterol levels.

These are flavored herbal teas over ice, hot water with a dash of cinnamon and a small amount of maple syrup, and flat water with fresh mint leaves.