Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/DU53tdHmq6Q We now know that drinking two or more artificially sweetened beverages a day may trigger strokes, heart disease, and untimely death for middle-aged women.  This from a study of more than 80,000 post-menopausal women participating in the Women’s Health Initiative. Those women who did drink the two a day regularly, when compared with controls who never drank beverages with “fake sugar,” were 23% more likely to have a stroke, often due to clot formation, 29% more likely to have a heart attack, and 16% more likely to die for any reason. The study did not identify which artificial sweeteners may be more dangerous than others.  The bottom like is that there are few reasons to drink these “fake sugar” drinks.  Many of us drink so-called diet drinks to avoid weight gain, but I recently reported a study that shows such beverages will not help you with weight loss so don’t bother. If you love the cold, fizzy feeling in your throat, you are better off drinking seltzer or sparkling w