Could Diet Soda and Depression be Linked?

Based on a new study looking at artificially sweetened beverages, adults who drink sweetened beverages – diet drinks especially – have a higher risk of being depressed, the American Academy of Neurology found. The study looked at 263,925 people between the ages of 50 and 71, evaluating their sweetened drink consumption between 1995 and 1996.

“Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing

them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk,” study author Honglei Chen of the National Institutes of Health in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina noted. “More research is needed to confirm these findings, and people with depression should continue to take depression medications prescribed by their doctors.”

The diet soda and depression study found that not all beverages were bad. People who drank four cups of coffee per day were about 10 percent less likely to develop depression than people who drank no coffee.

Read more at The Inquisitr