Isak and colleagues at the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine recruited 39,786 Japanese volunteers between the ages of 40 and 59 and surveyed them with a questionnaire about their daily eating habits, including soft drink intake. Soft drinks are natural or artificially prepared beverages with an alcohol content of less than 0.5 percent and usually include carbonated drinks, juice drinks, tea drinks, etc. Researchers found that women who consumed soft drinks almost daily had a 21% higher chance of having a stroke and an 83% higher chance of having an ischemic stroke than women who never or rarely consumed soft drinks. Ischemic stroke refers to cerebral blood clots that cause ischemia in the brain, resulting in stroke symptoms such as hemiparesis and impaired consciousness. The findings also showed that the association between soft drink intake and the risk of stroke in men was “minimal”. Many people know that soft drinks are associated with obesity and diabetes. A Japanese study showed that it is also related to cardiovascular health, and women who drink one soft drink a day have an increased chance of having blood clots in their brains by about 80% and are prone to strokes. However, men seem to be “favored” by soft drinks, there is no such association.