Your driving fears and driving anxiety can go hand in hand with depression, but a study also found depression may go hand in hand with something you may drink every day. Diet soda, and other sweetened drinks, may increase your risk of falling prey to depression. On the flip side, the study also suggested drinking coffee can actually slightly lower your risk of depression.
The study, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in San Diego in March, spent a 10-year-span evaluating the effects of specific beverages on more than 260,000 study participants.
The depression link came to light when researchers reviewed the more than 11,000 participants who had been diagnosed with depression over the course of the 10-year span and the beverage habits of those participants. Sweetened sodas and sweetened fruit juices, especially of the diet variety, were markedly on their drinking lists. Coffee, on the other hand, seemed to naturally reduce the risk of depression.
Since a depressed state can be a potential breeding ground for increased driving fears, driving phobias and driving anxiety, anything that keeps its risk to a minimum may be a good thing to heed indeed!
Read more about the study at the American Academy of Neurology website: http://www.aan.com/press/index.cfm?fuseaction=release.view&release=1128
