Sweetened drinks can increase irregular heartbeat risk — and here’s exactly how many

There’s a bitter truth behind sweetened drinks.

The American Heart Association has backed a new study that found both sugar- and artificially-sweetened beverages can increase consumers’ risk of irregular heartbeat, known medically as atrial fibrillation or “AFib,” by up to 20%. The condition can increase the risk of stroke by five-fold.

The new report, published in AHA’s Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology journal, revealed that adults who drink two liters or more of sweetened pop or juice, including diet, per week had a higher risk of AFib than adults who drank fewer sodas.

That’s equal to roughly six 12-ounce cans weekly.

An ideal swap for soda would be fresh, unsweetened fruit or vegetable juices, which researchers found were associated with an 8% lower risk of irregular heartbeat.

The AHA has said that their findings are among the first to connect sugary and artificially sweetened drinks to AFib.

Researchers predict that some 12 million people will have developed AFib by 2030.

“Our study’s findings cannot definitively conclude that one beverage poses more health risk than another due to the complexity of our diets and because some people may drink more than one type of beverage,” said lead study author Dr. Ningjian Wang, a researcher at the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, in a statement.

Wang suggested that cutting both diet and full-sugar drinks is ideal.

“Based on these findings, we recommend that people reduce or even avoid artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages whenever possible,” Wang said. “Do not take it for granted that drinking low-sugar and low-calorie artificially sweetened beverages is healthy, it may pose potential health risks.”

Wang’s team analyzed health data from more than 200,000 adults who began the study free of afib, sometimes between 2006 and 2010. About a decade later, more than 9,300 participants had developed an irregular heartbeat.

Compared to those who drank no sweetened sodas, people who drank more than 2 liters — or just about six 12-ounce cans — of diet soda in a week were at a 20% higher risk of developing AFib, while those who stuck to real-sugar sodas incurred a 10% higher risk.

Tobacco use may be a factor, according to researchers, as current smokers who drank more than two liters of sugary drinks per week increased their risk of AFib to 31%.

“Although the mechanisms linking sweetened beverages and atrial fibrillation risk are still unclear, there are several possible explanations, including insulin resistance and the body’s response to different sweeteners,” Wang said. “Artificial sweeteners in food and beverages mainly include sucralose, aspartame, saccharin and acesulfame.”

Sweetened drinks, including those made with zero-calorie sugars, have previously been linked to Type 2 diabetes and obesity as well as cancer and developmental disorders, such as autism, in children.

Dietician Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., a nutrition committee member with the AHA, called the study results surprising according to the cardiovascular research nonprofit.

“While there is robust evidence about the adverse effects of sugar-sweetened beverages and cardiovascular disease risk, there is less evidence about adverse health consequences of artificial sweeteners,” Kris-Etherton noted, adding that “water is the best choice, and, based on this study, no- and low-calorie sweetened beverages should be limited or avoided.”

Wang urged policymakers and cosumers to heed the AHA’s guidance on limiting soda consumption.

“These novel findings on the relationships among atrial fibrillation risk and sugar- and artificially sweetened beverages and pure juice may prompt the development of new prevention strategies by considering decreasing sweetened drinks to help improve heart health,” Wang said.