Source : CNN
Guys, listen up: There's another reason to limit your intake of sugary or artificially sweetened sodas: It might contribute to heart failure. Researchers followed the food habits of 42,000 Swedish men over 12 years and found that men who drank at least two sweetened beverages a day had a 23% higher risk of going into heart failure. The study was published Monday in the British Medical Journal.
"The takeaway message is that people who regularly consume sweetened beverages should consider limiting their consumption to reduce their risk of heart failure," said co-author Dr. Susanna Larsson of the Stockholm Karolinska Institutet.
When your heart isn't strong enough to pump adequate blood and oxygen to support your body, you suffer heart failure. Nearly 6 million people live with heart failure in the United States. As the population ages, and more people survive heart attacks or live longer with high blood pressure, the numbers of people living with a failing heart are rising in the United States and around the globe.
'A very miserable life'
"It's a very miserable life," said Dr. Roberto Bolli, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. "Patients with heart failure are severely limited in their ability to perform daily tasks, they get short of breath for even small efforts like walking one block, or sometimes even walking inside their house." Many of them have shortness of breath at rest, while they're lying in bed, Bolli continued, "and often wake up at night, with shortness of breath. They have swelling of their legs. They have chest pain. So it is a severe impairment in the quality of their life."
Heart failure is so serious that, according to the Heart Failure Society of America, "less than 50% of patients are living five years after their initial diagnosis and less than 25% are alive at 10 years."
