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Americans have long had a love affair with sugary drinks, from fizzy sodas to sweetened fruity beverages. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 50% of American adults drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day.
It is no secret that consuming excessive amounts of added sugars from any source is linked to negative health outcomes, including an increased risk for developing obesity, heart disease, dental cavities and more.
But a new study published in Frontiers in Public Health suggests that sipping on sugary beverages could actually be worse for our health than consuming other forms of added sugar.
How Was the Study Conducted and What Did It Find?
Data has already established that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages—think soda, fruit drinks and sweet tea made with real sugar—is linked to negative health outcomes. Still, whether drinking sugar-sweetened beverages has the same or similar effect on health outcomes when compared with other sources of added sugar has not been established.
To determine the link between added sugar intake from three categories of sugar-sweetened foods and beverages and risk of seven cardiovascular diseases, researchers evaluated diet and lifestyle data from 69,705 Swedish adults between the ages of 45 and 83, over a 22-year period. The three food and drink categories included:
Sugar-sweetened drinks, including all sweetened sodas and fruit drinks but not pure fruit juices
Treats, like pastries, ice cream, chocolate and sweets
Toppings, such as table sugar, honey, jams and marmalades
After analyzing the relationships between consuming certain sugar-sweetened foods or drinks and incidence of heart-health outcomes, including ischemic stroke, heart failure and aortic stenosis, researchers determined that there is a relationship between consuming added sugars from any source and ischemic stroke and abdominal aortic aneurysm.
When it came to evaluating the relationship between consuming sugar-sweetened drinks specifically and health outcomes, the researchers showed that greater consumption was linked to greater incidence of some cardiac issues.
Specifically, researchers found that drinking more than eight servings of sugar-sweetened beverages per week was associated with a:
19% higher risk of ischemic stroke
18% higher risk of heart failure
11% higher risk of atrial fibrillation
31% higher risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm
Interestingly, the researchers noted that a low intake of treats was associated with a higher risk of all the studied outcomes. Consuming fewer sugary “toppings” (table sugar, honey, jams and marmalades) was linked to greater incidence of heart failure and aortic stenosis.
