For years now, experts have been warning people away from sugary drinks, like soda. They’ve warned that sugary drinks are a great contributor to obesity. While the potential for weight gain should be enough to discourage your aging relative from them, new research suggests that sugary drinks can also harm the heart.
Heart Health and Sugary Drinks
According to an article posted on WebMD, one of the researchers involved in the study said of sugary drinks, “They’re the single biggest contributor of added sugar to Americans’ diets.” To find out how drinking soda and other drinks laden with sugar, like sports drinks and fancy coffees, researchers followed in excess of 110,000 people who worked as health professionals. They followed the participants from the 1980s until 2014. Over the course of the study, 2,700 of them died from stroke or heart disease.
In reviewing the data collected, researchers determined that the participants who drank two or more sugary beverages per day were about 33 percent more likely to die from a stroke or heart disease in comparison to people who rarely drank them. While it’s true that those who avoided sugary drinks were more likely to eat healthier diets overall, even after the researchers factored out overall diet, the risk remained.
Other Dangers of Sugary Drinks
In addition to the potential for heart disease and stroke, drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a bevy of other health problems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines sugary drinks as “any liquids that are sweetened with various forms of added sugars like brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, lactose, malt syrup, maltose, molasses, raw sugar, and sucrose.”
Some of the problems that sugary drinks may contribute to include:
- Obesity.
- Type 2 Diabetes.
- Kidney disease.
- Liver disease.
- Tooth decay.
- Gout.
Cutting out all sugary beverages may be difficult for your aging relative, but even reducing the amount they drink can make a difference. Experts say the best thing to do is to replace the drinks with water. If the senior does not enjoy plain water, try serving infused water. To make it, simply cut up fruit, vegetables, or herbs and put them in a pitcher. Then fill the pitcher with water and let it sit for a while before serving.
Senior care providers can offer older adults healthy drink alternatives. A senior care provider can make infused water or a pot of tea. Senior care providers can also improve your family member’s overall diet by cooking healthy meals for them.
Sources
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20190318/stay-away-from-sugary-sodas-spare-your-heart#1
https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/data-statistics/sugar-sweetened-beverages-intake.html
IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE ARE CONSIDERING HIRING CAREGIVERS IN LINCOLN PARK, IL, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT BRIGHTSTAR CARE CHICAGO. CALL TODAY: 312.382.8888.