Diet Soda and Kidney Function

Researchers from the Nurses' Health Study in Boston released findings that indicate women who drink two or more diet sodas a day experienced a 30 percent drop in kidney function over the course of a two decades long study. More than 3,000 women participated in the study, the median age being 67. Lead researcher Julie Lin, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, says the outcomes were especially startling because the women surveyed all had health kidney function at the start of the research. The drop in function was attributed to a decreased glomerular filtration rate. This rate naturally drops with age, however, it was higher than normal in the diet soda drinkers.