Diet drinks may be associated with strokes among post-menopausal women

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/aha-ddm021219.php

Public Release: 14-Feb-2019
Stroke Journal Report
American Heart Association

Among post-menopausal women, drinking multiple diet drinks daily was associated with an increase in the risk of having a stroke caused by a blocked artery, especially small arteries, according to research published in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association.

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Compared with women who consumed diet drinks less than once a week or not at all, women who consumed two or more artificially sweetened beverages per day were:

23 percent more likely to have a stroke;
31 percent more likely to have a clot-caused (ischemic) stroke;
29 percent more likely to develop heart disease (fatal or non-fatal heart attack); and
16 percent more likely to die from any cause.

Researchers found risks were higher for certain women. Heavy intake of diet drinks, defined as two or more times daily, more than doubled stroke risk in:

women without previous heart disease or diabetes, who were 2.44 times as likely to have a common type of stroke caused by blockage of one of the very small arteries within the brain;
obese women without previous heart disease or diabetes, who were 2.03 times as likely to have a clot-caused stroke; and
African-American women without previous heart disease or diabetes, who were 3.93 times as likely to have a clot-caused stroke.

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