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发帖数: 3 | 1 http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/sweet-sodas-soft-drinks-m
We know that sugary sodas aren't good for our bodies; now it turns out that
they may not be good for our minds, either. A new study of more than 260,000
people has found a link between sweetened soft-drinks and depression -- and
diet sodas may be making matters worse.
Related: Diet Soda May Be Making You Fat
Americans drink far more soda than people in other countries -- as much as
170 liters per person per year (no wonder New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg banned super-sized servings of the stuff). But the impact of this
study isn't limited to the United States. "Sweetened beverages, coffee and
tea are commonly consumed worldwide and have important physical-and may have
important mental-health consequences," study author Dr. Honglei Chen, an
investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,
said in a statement.
Related: Are the Health Risks of Soda Really That Bad?
The study, which was released on Tuesday and will be presented at the
American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in March, involved 263,925
people between the ages of 50 and 71. Researchers tracked their consumption
of beverages like soda, tea, coffee, and other soft drinks from 1995 to 1996
and then, 10 years later, asked them if they had been diagnosed with
depression since the year 2000. More than 11,300 of them had.
Participants who drank more than four servings of soda per day were 30
percent more likely to develop depression than participants who did not
drink soda at all. People who stuck with fruit punch had a 38 percent higher
risk than people who didn't drink sweetened drinks.
And all that extra sugar isn't the actual problem: The research showed that
low-calorie diet sodas, iced teas, and fruit punches were linked to an
slightly higher risk of depression than the high-calorie stuff. Researchers
say that the artificial sweetener aspartame may be to blame.
"Our findings are preliminary, and the underlying biological mechanisms are
not known," said Chen. The study found an association but could not
conclusively determine whether sodas and other sweet soft drinks cause
depression, even after taking into account factors like age, gender,
education, smoking, body mass index (BMI) and other issues. Still, the
results "are intriguing and consistent with a small but growing body of
evidence suggesting that artificially sweetened beverages may be associated
with poor health outcomes."
The American Beverage Association took issue with the study, saying that "
there is no credible scientific evidence linking sweetened beverage
consumption to depression – of any kind."
“We may be in a new year, but there is nothing new about the ways our
critics try to attack our industry," the ABA said in a statement sent to
Yahoo! Shine. "This research is nothing more than an abstract – it has not
been peer-reviewed, published or even, at the very least, presented at a
scientific meeting. Furthermore, neither this abstract nor the body of
scientific evidence supports that drinking soda or other sweetened beverages
causes depression. Thus, promoting any alleged findings without supporting
evidence is not only premature, but irresponsible.”
The ABA noted that the 11,311 people diagnosed with depression during the
study represents about 4 percent of participants. "Even if the methodology
is without flaws, this percentage is well within – and actually below –
the 6.7 percent noted by the National Institute of Mental Health at NIH as
the national average for the U.S. population aged 18 and older in a given
year," they pointed out.
The study did offer a bright side for those who can't do without the
caffeinated jolt of their daily sodas. Adults who drank coffee had a 10
percent lower risk of depression compared to people who didn't drink any
coffee, according to the study. That reinforces findings from a 2011 study
published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which said that women who
drink fully caffeinated coffee have a lower risk of depression than non-
coffee drinkers.
"Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or
replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your
depression risk," said Chen. "Coffee contains large amounts of caffeine,
which is a well-known brain stimulant."
Chen cautions that, if you've been diagnosed with depression, cutting your
soda intake isn't necessarily going to help. "More research is needed to
confirm these findings," Chen said, "and people with depression should
continue to take depression medications prescribed by their doctors." |
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