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A new study has shown adults who drink one or more soft drinks a day increase their risk of metabolic sydrome and heart disease by 40%.

Metabolic syndrome is a condition where a person has 3 or more of the following 5 risk factors:

• Excess abdominal weight. That is a waist circumference of over 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.
• Blood pressure levels of 135/85mmHg or over.
• Fasting blood glucose of over 100mg/dL.
• Triglycerides over 150 mg/dL.
• HDL or good cholesterol levels below 40mg/dL for men and below 50mg/dL for women.

Surprisingly, the results of the study were the same for both drinkers of diet and regular soft drink drinkers.

Dr. Nabel, Director of NHLBI says, “Other studies have shown that the extra calories and sugar in soft drinks contribute to weight gain, and therefore heart disease risk. This study echoes those findings by extending the link to all soft drinks and the metabolic syndrome.”

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