Even the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity per week is not enough to offset the cardiovascular disease risks associated with drinking sugary drinks, warns a new study led by the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. in which a researcher from Laval University participated.
However, recalled Professor Jean-Philippe Drouin-Chartier, who teaches at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Quebec institution, the marketing strategy for these drinks frequently consists of presenting them in a context of physical activity.
“So this suggests a little that the consumption of sugary drinks is not necessarily harmful to your health when you do physical activity and you are active,” explained Professor Drouin-Chartier. This is really the hypothesis that we wanted to evaluate with our study. »
The scientists used two cohorts totaling around 100,000 adults, followed for around thirty years. They found that consuming just two sugary drinks per week was associated with a high risk of cardiovascular disease ― regardless of the level of activity carried out at the same time.
At most, the study said, physical activity halved the risk associated with the consumption of sugary drinks.
We already knew that the consumption of sugary drinks is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, recalled Professor Drouin-Chartier, and the new study “confirms this”. We also knew that physical activity had a protective effect against these diseases.
“But when we put the two together, it’s interesting to see that in people who consume two or more servings per week of sugary drinks, even if they […] met the recommendations of 150 minutes of physical activity per week, that the protective effect of physical activity was not sufficient to completely attenuate the harmful effects of sugary drinks,” he summarized.
The researchers emphasize that the frequency of consumption studied, i.e. twice a week, was relatively low; It makes sense that the risk of cardiovascular disease would be even higher in the presence of daily consumption.
It is also safe to assume that the percentage of the population that meets the recommendation of 150 minutes of physical activity per week is rather low.
“The message is certainly not that physical activity is useless,” said Professor Drouin-Chartier. The message is that it’s not enough to negate the effect of sugary drinks. »
In the study, consumption of artificially sweetened or “diet” drinks, often touted as an alternative to sugary drinks, was not associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
“But the glass of water is always going to be the best drink,” the researcher said.
The sugary drinks studied in this study included carbonated and soft drinks (with or without caffeine), lemonade and fruit cocktails. Energy drinks were not considered specifically, but they also tend to be sugary.
Sweetened beverages constitute the largest source of added sugars in the North American diet, it was recalled in a press release, and their consumption is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, the main cause of mortality in the world.
The findings of this study were published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.