Don t have a stroke, man!

Another tip of the ACSH hat to Julie Gunlock, who, in her latest column for Independent Women s Forum, takes apart a recent study alleging that regular soda consumption is associated with a higher risk of stroke. Sounds scary, Gunlock writes, until you read some of the study s other findings like the fact that people who consume a lot of soda seem to have a lot of habits that researchers agree may lead individuals to have a stroke.

Yes, it turns out that people who drank soda more frequently also had higher rates of high blood pressure and high cholesterol, as well as lower rates of physical activity. They were also more likely to eat red meat and whole-fat dairy products.

Read the entirety of Gunlock s humorous but pointed take-down of the study that led researchers to conclude that physically inactive, disease-riddled, overweight people with high blood pressure and high cholesterol and who consumed red meat and whole-fat dairy products had a stroke because they drank a soda.

As Gunlock observes, This tendency to blame one single food or beverage for a disease is just irresponsible. It will do nothing to help people improve their diets and avoid crippling diseases. What it will do is fuel efforts to limit, ban and tax these food and beverage items. This is very much the point of the latest op-ed by ACSH s Senior Fellow in Nutrition Dr. Ruth Kava. In How Sweet It Isn t, Dr. Kava thoughtfully critiques numerous proposals to regulate sugar consumption in the U.S. as if it were tobacco or alcohol.

Read Dr. Kava s op-ed in its entirety here.