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- Researchers say two or more non-alcoholic drinks a day increase the risk of premature death from all causes.
- The researchers said it does not matter if the drink is sweetened with sugar or artificial ingredients.
- In addition to obesity and heart disease, researchers say that excess sugar increases the risk of digestive health problems and Parkinson's disease.
In their quest for a longer and healthier life, people are not only looking for what to include in their diet, but also what to leave out.
There is increasing evidence that sugar should be on everyone's list of things to be avoided and that sugar-sweetened beverages – containing sugar and artificial sweeteners – have no place in a healthy diet.
Now, a
Researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer used data from nearly 452,000 people in 10 European countries participating in the European Foresight Survey on Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).
They concluded that the number of all-cause deaths was higher among people who drank at least two soft drinks a day, no matter how sweet they were.
The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, also found that death rates from digestive disease were higher among people drinking more than two soft drinks a day.
"This study found that the consumption of total soft drinks, sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened was positively associated with all-cause deaths in this large European cohort," the researchers concluded. "The results support public health campaigns to limit the consumption of soft drinks."
The results of the study resemble those that have shown that diets high in sugar pose serious health risks, including heart disease, stroke and some cancers.
The research raises concerns, particularly as the obesity epidemic in America is propelled by the high sugar content of many processed foods. This includes sugary drinks such as sodas, fruit juices, sports drinks and energy drinks.
Dr. Robert Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist and emeritus professor of pediatrics from the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California at San Francisco and a straightforward spokesperson for the sugar industry.
In the 10 years since his viral "bitter truth" speech about sugar, he has noticed a trend: research funded by the sugar industry does not find any adverse health effects on sugar consumption, while that a research without funding this industry always finds high sugar diets lead to more illnesses and shorter lifetimes.
The most recent study did not receive funding from the sugar industry.
Lustig notes that the results are "in the same direction as all the rest", which shows that poor diets turn into health problems in the future.
"These are garbage that come in and out of the garbage, and sugary drinks – and artificially sweetened beverages – are the very embodiment of garbage," Lustig told Healthline.
Although Dr. Lustig stated that the study was reasonably well done, he stated that his greatest weakness was to show a correlation and not a cause-and-effect relationship. This means that it shows that sugary drinks are related to these diseases, but that does not show that they cause them.
One of the reasons is that studying people's diets is complicated because they often change from day to day and throughout life.
"In the end, there is no clinical trial in the history of humanity that can control everything," Lustig said.
The new research links artificially sweetened beverages to significant gastrointestinal problems and increased risk of Parkinson's disease, two conditions that Lustig said had never seen before in this type of research.
But he says more research is needed to confirm the causality, not just the correlation.
"It's early, and you're not going to lose your mind," said Lustig.
Recent research also asked people at the beginning of the study about their consumption of drinks, especially if they drank one a month or two or more each day.
There is a lot of room to maneuver in the middle. Experts say future research should ask additional questions about whether these models have remained consistent or changed over time.
Dr. Anton Bilchik, professor of surgery and head of gastrointestinal research at the John Wayne Cancer Institute of Providence's Saint John's Health Center in California, explains that excessive sugar consumption is associated with obesity, a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
However, he notes that there are other links between sugar and cardiovascular disease that are not well understood.
"All sweet drinks, regardless of their source, exceed four drinks [per] day is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, "Bilchik told Healthline. "Low-calorie drinks, while containing less sugar, also carry an increased risk."
The American Heart Association advises men not to consume more than 9 teaspoons of added sugar a day and women not to consume more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar.
Many popular sweet drinks, including juices, contain far more than these amounts in a single serving.
According to the Harvard T.H.Chan of Public Health, 12 ounces of soda or orange juice contains 10 teaspoons of sugar. In addition, soda with orange has 11 teaspoons of sugar. Cranberry juice cocktail at 12.
If you order at Starbucks a whipped white chocolate mocha with whipped cream, it contains about 18 teaspoons of sugar.
"Ideally, sugar is the best, but it's not realistic for the majority of us," said Dr. Sanjiv Patel, a cardiologist at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular. Institute of Orange Coast Medical Center in California, at Healthline.
But experts say that not consuming high-sugar drinks every day is one of the easiest ways to prevent excess sugar in a person's diet.
Such a lifestyle change can reduce the risk of getting preventable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.
"In the end, no matter what drink you drink, excessive drinking is a problem," Patel told Healthline. "The overall high sugar consumption of any beverage such as coffee with sugar, fruit juice, can cause problems."
In the end, experts recommend people to drink water and other unsweetened drinks to avoid heart problems and other health problems.
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