Sugary drink 0 g Woman +1.08 years Man +1.36 years
Do you remember your first soda? On my birthday, I got a raspberry soda, and on Christmas Eve, a Christmas must. For many children today, soft drinks are an everyday drink and a great energy source.
Joseph Priestley invented carbonated water in 1767. Soft drinks began to be sold in pharmacies, and 1952, No-Cal was the first sugar-free soft drink to be sweetened with cyclamate. In 1969, the FDA banned cyclamate when
it was discovered to be carcinogenic. In the summer of 2023, the WHO issued a warning that aspartame, which sweetens sugar-free soft drinks, is a “possible cause of cancer.”
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said as early as 400 BC. “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food.” Poor diet is behind 11 million deaths per year in the world.
Effects: Don’t drink calories. A 33cl can of Coca-Cola has 35g of sugar, a 50cl bottle of Sprite has 50g of sugar, and a 1.5l bottle of Fanta has 167g of sugar. In 2005, in the United States, sugary drinks provided teenagers with the most calories per day (226 calories per day), and pizza (213 calories per day) was second.
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/healt...
A long-term study of 37,716 men and 80,647 women in the United States showed that the more sugary drinks you drank, the greater the risk of early death. Compared to sugary beverages less than once a month, two to six per week increased mortality by 6%, one to two per day, a 14% increase, and at least two per day, a 21% increase.
Sugary drinks, in particular, increase the risk of early death from cardiovascular disease. Compared with infrequent drinkers, those who drank at least two per day had a 31% (and 10% increased risk for each extra) higher risk of early death from cardiovascular disease. There was a modest association between sugary drinks and the risk of premature death from cancer.
Malik V, Li Y, Pan A, De Koning L, Schernhammer E, Willett W, Hu F. Long-Term Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Mortality in US Adults. Circulation. 2019 Mar 18.
The more sugary drinks you drink during the day, the more calories you take in later. This is the opposite of solid food, where you compensate for a large meal with fewer calories at a later meal. Liquids do not provide the same satiety and satisfaction as solid foods; sugary drinks stimulate the appetite for other sweetened foods.
Studies found a strong link between sugary drink consumption and weight gain in children.
Malik VS, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages and BMI in children and adolescents: reanalyses of a meta-analysis. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2009 Jan 1;89(1):438-9.
For each additional serving of soda that children drank daily, the odds of being obese increased by 60% after 1½ years of follow-up.
Ludwig DS, Peterson KE, Gortmaker SL. Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis. The Lancet. 2001 Feb 17;357(9255):505-8.
A 20-year study of 120,000 people found that those who increased sugary drinks by one per day gained more weight (an average of one kilogram every four years) than those who did not change their intake.
Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. New England Journal of Medicine. 2011 Jun 23;364(25):2392-404.
A study that followed 98,786 women under the age of 20 showed that those who drank at least one sugary drink daily had an 85% increased risk of liver cancer and also a 68% greater risk of dying from chronic liver disease compared to those who each month drank fewer than four cups of tea a month.
Zhao L, Zhang X, Coday M, Garcia DO, Li X, Mossavar-Rahmani Y, Naughton MJ, Lopez-Pentecost M, Saquib N, Shadyab AH, Simon MS. Sugar-Sweetened and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Liver Cancer and Chronic Liver Disease Mortality. JAMA. 2023 Aug 8;330(6):537-46.
A 20% higher risk of dying or having a heart attack was found in those who consumed a can of sugary drinks a day in a study of 40,000 men over 20 years.
De Koning L, Malik VS, Kellogg MD, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption, incident coronary heart disease, and biomarkers of risk in men. Circulation. 2012 Apr 10;125(14):1735-41.
Fadnes LT, Økland J-M, Haaland ØA, Johansson KA (2022) https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=...
Estimating impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modeling study.) https://food4healthylife.org https://priorityapp.shinyapps.io/Food/
A study of 90,000 women over 20 years found that those who drank more than two sugary drinks per day had a 40% higher risk of heart attack and death from heart disease than those who rarely consumed sugary drinks.
Fung TT, Malik V, Rexrode KM, Manson JE, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption and risk of coronary heart disease in women. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2009 Feb 11;89(4):1037-42.
Those who drank at least one sugary drink per day had twice the risk of type 2 diabetes during the study than those who rarely drank.
Schulze MB, Manson JE, Ludwig DS, Colditz GA, Stampfer MJ, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages, weight gain, and incidence of type 2 diabetes in young and middle-aged women.JAMA. 2004 Aug 25;292(8):927-34.
A 26% increased risk of type 2 diabetes was found in those who drank 1-2 cans of sugary drinks each day compared to those who rarely consumed sugary drinks, a study found.
Malik VS, Popkin BM, Bray GA, Després JP, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis. Diabetes care. 2010 Nov 1;33(11):2477-83.
Dhingra R, Sullivan L, Jacques PF, Wang TJ, Fox CS, Meigs JB. D, Agostino RB, Gaziano JM, Vasan RS: Soft drink consumption and risk of developing cardiometabolic risk factors and the metabolic syndrome in middle-aged adults in the community. Circulation. 2007;116:480-8.
Tip: Never drink your calories; don’t replace sugary drinks with chemical additives you see warnings about years later. Don’t become the food industry’s unpaid guinea pig. In the past, the king had a taster to avoid getting poisoned food. Today, some food is poisoned in such small doses that it takes years to see its effects. Drink and enjoy coffee, green tea, and mineral water that have helped people for generations.