America is a vast orchestra of accents and dialects. Sweetened carbonated beverages are known as pop, soda, soda pop, or coke. There are probably a few more out there lurking.
New research links sweetened diet drinks, particularly artificially sweetened drinks with depression in adults. Whereas those to drink coffee had a slightly lower risk for depression.
This study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 65th Annual Meeting
"'Sweetened beverages, coffee and tea are commonly consumed worldwide and have important physical—and may have important mental—health consequences', said study author Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, with the National Institutes of Health in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.'
263,925 participants who were between 50-71 years of age were studied from 1995-1996. Different sweetened drinks were studied: pop, tea, fruit punch, coffee. Ten years post study, the researches followed up with participants to see if they received a diagnosis of depression since 2000.
11,311 participants were diagnosed with depression or 4.28% of the study.
The number of consumed beverages of soda was 4 and this lead to a 30 percent likelihood of depression compared to those who did not drink soda.
Participants who drank four cups of coffee daily were 10% likely to have depression compared to non-coffee drinkers.
"'Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk,' said Chen. 'More research is needed to confirm these findings, and people with depression should continue to take depression medications prescribed by their doctors.'"
Source: Seroka, Rachel, ed. "Hold the diet soda? Sweetened drinks linked to depression, coffee tied to lower risk."EurekAlert!. American Academy of Neurology, 08 01 2013. Web. 13 Jan 2013. <http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/aaon-htd010313.php?goback=.gde_2361947_member_203456924>.
Gina Lesako RD, LD is the SCAN blog coordinator, those interested in writing for SCAN can email her directly at firstname.lastname@example.org. (Resolve to increase your online exposure in 2013!)
She can also be found blogging at http://dietitianseatchocolatetoo.blogspot.com/). Find her on SCAN: http://www.scandpg.org/dietitians/15720/