Fake sugar is as bad as real sugar? What???

Hey, it’s Rich Dale here, and I’m a little bummed out.

Apparently, if you think you’re doing your body good by drinking artificially sweetened beverages, think again. A new study reveals diet drinks are every bit as bad for your heart as sugary drinks are!  The study, published in Tuesday’s “Journal of American College of Cardiology,” found “both higher consumers of sugary drinks and of artificially sweetened beverages had higher risks of first incident cardiovascular disease.”

“Whether patients prefer sugar sweetened drinks or sugar substitutes, I always caution patients to use either sparingly,” says dietitian Kate Patton. “This study confirms what we know from other research, which is that excess portions of both added sugary drinks and sugar sweetened beverages have a negative impact on overall health.”

Now when I read it carefully, I realized this was talking about heart health.  And I never started drinking diet drinks for my heart, directly anyway.  Ever since I went from a 30 to a 40 waist in practically one night, I started drinking diet drinks for one reason — the calories.  Zero instead of 120 in a can of soda!  And this study doesn’t say anything about that.

Long story short, I guess you can still keep your weight down with diet drinks, they just won’t do your heart any more good (or more harm) than sugary drinks.  So you could still see your heart still beating, breakin’ outta your body and flyin’ away like a bat out of hell.  Or not.  Basically, too much of anything is probably not great.