Enlarge ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's not clear if diet soft drinks are the healthiest choice.
It's not clear if diet soft drinks are the healthiest choice.
Got a Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi habit? Lots of Americans do. Consumption of all types of diet soft drinks has been on the rise. And as a nation, we drink an estimated 20 percent more of diet drinks now than we did 15 years ago.
So, is it good for us? A new study finds the answer to that question may depend a lot on, well, what you eat.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill found that diet soda drinkers who ate a so-called "prudent" diet, rich in fruit, fish, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and milk, were significantly less likely to develop metabolic syndrome over 20 years than those who ate a "Western diet" heavy in fried foods, meats and sugars.
Metabolic syndrome is a condition characterized by excess abdominal fat, elevated blood sugar, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol. About 32 percent of the participants in the "Western diet" cluster developed the condition.
Update at April 13, 2012, 11:05 ET: By contrast, 20 percent of people who drank sodas and had a prudent diet had metabolic syndrome. And 17.8 percent of prudent eaters who drank no soda had that problem.
End update.
Those with the lowest risk of developing metabolic disorder were the participants who followed the "prudent" diet and also drank no diet soda at all.
Read more here:
Advice for Diet Soda Lovers: Skip The Chips
