Sugar- and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and the Risks of Incident Stroke and Dementia

See related article, p 1129. Sugar-sweetened beverages are associated with cardiometabolic diseases, which may increase the risk of stroke and dementia. Limited prior findings suggest that sugarand artificially sweetened beverages are both associated with an increased risk of incident stroke, although conflicting findings have been reported. To our knowledge, studies are yet to examine the associations between sugary beverage consumption and the risk of incident dementia. Accordingly, we examined whether sugaror artificially sweetened soft drinks were associated with the 10-year risks of incident stroke and dementia in the community-based Framingham Heart Study. We also examined total sugary beverages, which combined sugar-sweetened soft drinks with noncarbonated high sugar beverages, such as fruit juices and fruit drinks.