New Research Points To Dangers Of Diet Soda

There's new evidence that drinking diet soda may not be good for you. A nine-year study shows an increased risk of stroke and other health problems for diet pop drinkers.

WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with Dr. Paul Cullis with Saint John Hospital, who said the study was wide-ranging.

"A lot of patients were studied. A lot of strokes and heart attacks were seen.  And, there was clear evidence -- which was statistically significant -- that drinking diet pop was really not beneficial, and specifically that it made it 61 percent more likely that you were going to have one of these bad events," he said.

Dr. Cullis says that most people assume they're doing the right thing by drinking diet pop.

"We had assumed of you reduced your calorie intake,  and therefore your weight, that you would be healthier... I think that what the study does show is that if we thought that we were reducing our risk of heart attack, stroke, or other vascular events by drinking diet soda, we wrong and we probably shouldn't be doing that," he said.

Cullis says researchers will now have to determine exactly why the diet drinks carry the increased risk. The findings were presented at the International Stroke Conference, Wednesday, in Los Angeles.

The study did not account for eating habits.