Drinking more than one soft drink each day may increase your risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study. Surprisingly, the effect is the same whether you’re quaffing regular soft drinks or the diet version. Scientists found that people who drink one or more soft drinks a day are 48 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a group of factors that increases your odds of developing diabetes and heart disease. Those factors include high blood pressure, obesity, high triglycerides, high blood sugar and low HDL (“good” cholesterol). The findings are part of a large, ongoing, government-directed research project called the Framingham Heart Study.

Researchers aren’t sure how soft drink consumption might lead to higher risk for metabolic syndrome. A few theories: Consumption of extra liquid might interfere with the body’s feeling of hunger and prompt excess eating of solid foods. Consuming sweetened drinks might increase a person’s appetite for other sweet foods. Or the caramel in soft drinks might contribute somehow to insulin resistance, meaning that it’s harder for your body to transfer sugar from your blood into cells that need it for energy.

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