A Swedish study published on Monday (Nov 2) in the British Medical Journal has shown that sweetened drinks are linked to heart failure.

The drinks include carbonated beverages and those that use artificial sweeteners.

Those who drank two or more servings of sweetened drinks a day had a 23 per cent higher risk of developing heart failure.

The study was done on 42,400 men aged between 45 and 79 years old, over a 12-year period, but researchers warned that findings may also apply equally to women.

However, the study could not differentiate between both sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages and could not make any inferences on whether any of the two were exclusively associated with heart failure risk.

"Our study findings suggest sweetened beverage consumption could contribute to heart failure development," researchers said. "These findings could have implications for heart failure prevention strategies."

"The take-home message is that people who regularly drink sweetened beverages should consider reducing their consumption," co-author Dr Susanna Larsson said in The Independent.

Spanish professors Miguel Ruiz-Canela and Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez said in an accompanying editorial that people who drink a large number of carbonated beverages generally have a poor diet, and are likely to be more susceptible to ill health.

"The well-known association of sweetened beverages with obesity and Type 2 diabetes, which are risk factors of heart failure, reinforces the biological plausibility of the findings," they added.