Daily diet soda may increase risk of heart attack, stroke

Gardener and her team studied 2,564 New York City adults who were 69 years or older at the study's start. Over the next decade, 591 men and women had a heart attack, stroke or died of cardiovascular causes -- including 31 percent of the 163 people who drank a diet soda daily at the start of the study.

Overall, daily consumption of diet soda was linked to a 44-percent higher chance of heart attack or stroke, compared with 22 percent for people who rarely or never drank diet soda but had a heart attack or stroke.

Gardener said that if diet soda itself contributes to health risks, it's not clear how.

Some research in rats suggests that artificial sweeteners can end up boosting food intake and weight, but whether these results translate to humans is unknown.