Coffee and Diet Soda: Polar Opposites When It Comes to Stroke Risk

Tue, Aug 18, 15 by Jim Couch

Diet soda and coffee are both beverages, and both have zero calories.  But the similarities stop there, especially when it comes to stroke risk.  New research shows an increased risk for stroke among diet soda drinkers, while previous research on coffee shows just the opposite.

The increased risk of stroke could be as much as 61 percent for diet soda drinkers, this according to a study presented February 9 at the American Stroke Association’s International Conference in California.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the study tracked 2,564 New Yorkers over a 9.3 year period, who were classified into groups according to their soda drinking habits.  Results showed that every day diet soda drinkers were at the greatest risk of stroke compared to those people who do not drink any soda.

Now go back one year to the same Internation Stroke Conference for results of a coffee study released February 25, 2010.  Researchers at University of Cambridge in England studied over 20,000 men and women starting in the mid-1990s and followed them for 12 years.  Those who indicated they drank coffee were only 71% as likely to have a stroke as those who drank no coffee.  Dosage did not matter as to whether the coffee drinkers had one or four cups of coffee a day, nor did it matter whether they had regular or decaf.

Based on these studies, diet soda drinkers wanting to avoid a stroke in their future should perhaps seriously considering a switch to coffee or even iced coffee.