Do Artificial Sweeteners Cause Heart Disease?

A new study published last month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that soda drinkers have a higher risk of heart disease than those who do not drink sweetened beverages.

The association between sugar consumption and heart disease risk is not new. As a person’s sugar intake increases, so does their risk of cardiovascular disease. And this association is seen regardless of age, body weight, or exercise habits. Even among those with otherwise healthy diets (you know, lots of fruits and vegetables, lean meat, whole grains, and that sort of thing), heart disease risk increases with added sugar intake.

Those who drank a lot of artificially-sweetened soda had the same elevated risk as people who drank a lot of sugar-sweetened soda.

The more surprising thing about this study was that those who drank a lot of artificially-sweetened soda had the same elevated risk as people who drank a lot of sugar-sweetened soda. The risk of heart disease was about one-third higher among those who were high consumers of either type of soda, compared to low consumers. That means that if 10 out of 100 low-consumers developed heart disease, then 13 out of 100 high-consumers would.  

How sugar can hurt your heart

Those who consume more added sugars are more likely to be overweight, and that certainly contributes to heart disease risk. But even when you’re not overweight, a diet high in sugar can raise your triglyceride levels, or the amount of fat circulating in your bloodstream. It may also lead to fatty deposits in the liver. And these could be some of the mechanisms that would explain the link between sugar intake and heart disease risk.

There’s no mechanism to explain how artificial sweeteners might hurt your heart.

But none of that explains how artificial sweeteners might increase cardiovascular risk. And that’s the real mystery here. There’s no mechanism to explain how artificial sweeteners might hurt your heart.

This is not the first mystery regarding zero-calorie sweeteners. Despite being low in sugar and calories, artificial sweetener use has been linked with increased rates of diabetes and obesity. Early on, theories were proposed to explain this. Perhaps the sweet taste tricks the body into responding as if it’s actually sugar. Or perhaps artificial sweeteners increase appetite or sugar cravings. 

Research designed to test these theories has so far come up empty-handed. (Well, not completely empty-handed. But, as is so often the case, research in humans fails to bear out preliminary findings on lab rats.) 

How do artificial sweeteners hurt your health?

The best theory we have at the moment to explain this apparent...

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