Sugary Soft Drinks Raise Risk of Diabetes -Study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. rates of diabetes have soared alongside soft drink consumption, and scientists said on Tuesday the spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels triggered by the sugary drinks may be at least partly to blame.

Adult-onset diabetes, which afflicts 17 million Americans, is caused by the body either becoming resistant to insulin or not producing enough of it.

"Rates of diabetes are skyrocketing. At the same time, over the last couple of decades, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has increased," said Meir Stampfer of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, one of the authors of a study examining the link.

Between 1977 and 1997, U.S. soft drink consumption rose 61 percent among adults and more than doubled among children, the study said. The increased incidence of diabetes has also paralleled the growing obesity epidemic, the report said.

As part of a study of 91,000 female nurses participating in the second phase of the Nurses Health Study, based at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the Harvard researchers isolated the relationship between frequent soft drink consumption and diabetes. A total of 741 women developed diabetes during the 1991 to 1999 study period.

"Women who were drinking sugar-sweetened soft drinks every day or more than once a day had an 80 percent increased risk of diabetes compared with women who hardly ever drank sugared sodas," Stampfer said.

Soft drinks are absorbed quickly and one does not feel full despite consuming plenty of calories, the report said.

Women who drank one or more soft drinks per day gained, on average, 17 pounds (7.7 kg) over the eight-year period, while those who drank one soft drink per week or less gained 6 pounds (2.7 kg) on average.

By contrast, women who consumed diet soft drinks or fruit juice had a lower risk of developing diabetes or gaining weight excessively, the report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites) said.

"Soft drinks are the leading source of added sugar in the American diet. They provide a large amount of excess calories and no nutritional value," said Matthias Schulze, the study's lead author.

Imagine that filling your stomach with crap every day of your life might lead to a health problem, duh.

This seems to be obvious to everyone but the sugar industry and the ones who are in their pocket

While we blame the sugar industry, there is very little sugar in soft drinks in the U.S. The common sweetener is high fructose corn syrup. So blame the corn growers.

In the narrow definition of sugar, you are right. But I think that "Sugar" as used in the article and by most people includes corn products and all other "Sugars" that are not no or low calorie.

And that it includes sugars from all sources. I'd include the sugar alcohol producers and glycerine as well.

Study links soft drinks, diabetes

ELIZABETH LEE, ATLANTA

Drinking at least one sugar-sweetened soft drink or fruit punch daily nearly doubles the risk of diabetes, according to the first large study to examine the suggested link.

Women who drank fewer than one of the beverages a month had half the risk of developing diabetes than those who drank one a day, according to the study of 91,000 nurses. The results were published in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Women who increased the amount of sugar-sweetened drinks they consumed from one or less a week to one or more daily also were most likely to gain weight, picking up 17 pounds in eight years. The study provides more grist for a long-standing debate among nutritionists, government panels and the food and beverage industry about whether added sugars contribute to obesity and chronic diet-related diseases.

The American Beverage Association, formerly the National Soft Drink Association, criticized the study's focus on a single food as a cause of diabetes, saying many factors contribute to the disease.

"Soft drinks are a good subject to attack right now," said Richard Adamson, the beverage group's vice president for scientific and technical affairs.

The research published today is part of a long-running Harvard University-based study of diet, health and disease in 300,000 people. The research has produced influential findings on the dangers of trans-fatty acids and on the links between obesity and chronic disease and between consumption of red meat and colon cancer.

The latest study adjusted for potential risk factors for diabetes, such as physical activity, family history and body mass index, a measure of whether someone is overweight.

During the research period, there were 741 new cases of diabetes among the nurses, who ranged in age from the 20s to the 40s.

An editorial accompanying the study endorsed its conclusions.

The study "provides strong, scientifically sound evidence that excess calories from soft drinks are directly contributing to the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes, at least in the United States, and should help convince the U.S. government that further changes in health policy are needed," wrote Dr. Caroline M. Apovian, a physician and director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston Medical Center.

The National Institutes of Health funded the study, which was conducted by researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital.

Lobbyists for beverage manufacturers assailed the study's conclusions. A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola referred questions to the American Beverage Association.

"The conclusions are scientifically unsound," said Adamson. "It's a totally unhealthy lifestyle that increased the risk. These women smoked more, they ate more, they had less protein intake, they had less cereal fiber intake, they exercised less. Give me a break, no wonder they had increased risk of type 2 diabetes."

The American Diabetes Association does not single out any food or beverage as causing the disease, said Dr. Nathaniel Clark, a physician who is the group's national vice president for clinical affairs. He said he believes extra pounds, rather than high sugar consumption, triggered diabetes in the women, but added, "It is true (researchers) could not account for the increase in diabetes solely on weight gain."

The extra pounds accounted for only half the increased risk of diabetes, said Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and one of the study's authors.

Researchers theorized that the risk of diabetes may increase because the sugars in sweetened drinks are rapidly absorbed in the body, raising blood sugar levels quickly and eventually leading to insulin resistance.

Consumers already have started to move away from sweetened soft drinks and toward diet sodas and bottled water. The sales volume of Coke Classic shrank 3 percent last year, according to Beverage Digest, and Pepsi-Cola was down 4.5 percent.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended this year that schools eliminate sales of sweetened drinks. Some school districts have moved to restrict sales.

The study's authors called for public health strategies that would decrease consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Manson said that in the last 20 years, soft drink consumption has increased more than 60 percent in adults and has more than doubled in children.

"These trends do parallel the increased epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes, in both children and adults," she said. "There is an association."

The study also looked for a link between diet soda and diabetes, because of the caramel coloring that is in both diet and sugar-sweetened beverages. It found a "slight, nonsignificant" increased risk.

The study did not find a link between fruit juice and diabetes. Researchers said that could be because the naturally occurring sugars in fruit juice affect the body differently than the added sugars in sweetened drinks, or because the nutrients, fiber and plant chemicals in fruit juices may counteract the effects of sugar.

Sweetened soft drinks are the largest single food source of calories for Americans, contributing 7 percent of total calories consumed, according to the accompanying editorial in the medical journal.

To meet federal nutritional guidelines, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says Americans would need to cut in half their consumption of added sugars, found in products like sweetened drinks and many processed foods.

Both Coke and Pepsi have introduced lower-sugar colas this year but consumer response to C2 and Pepsi Edge has been modest, analysts say.

The medical journal's editorial calls for the government to redefine guidelines for sugar consumption, especially in soft drinks, and to support efforts to remove soda machines from schools or replace the products with healthier options.

An independent scientific panel studying federal nutrition guidelines disagreed this summer on the role of sugar on weight gain or body mass index, but concluded that individuals who consumed foods or beverages high in added sugar took in more calories than those who consumed low amounts of added sugar. They also noted that it's more difficult to regulate calories in sugar-sweetened drinks than in solid food.

Elizabeth Lee writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: elee(at)ajc.com. Staff writer Scott Leith contributed to this article.
August 25, 2004

All I can say is "Duh!"

It's only the financial interests that are trying to muddy the waters here.

In the article on cnn.com, 2 diabetes experts stated that more research is needed before making conclusions. It is very funny to me that when something is shown to be clearly good (low carb) or clearly bad (sugar, HFCS), the experts say you need more studies before making any obvious healthy changes. I havent heard anything intellegent coming from a mainstream diabetes expert.

There are a number of studies that indicate high fructose corn syrup is even worse than sucrose and glucose. They have different metabolic consequences in body.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...earch&DB=pubmed

Personally, I think HFCS is a bad idea. And drinking soda is a bad idea.

But the data from this study doesn't mean much of anything. Correlation and 'links' don't mean much. How do they know the sugar was the ONLY difference between these groups? They don't. They are taking a wild guess, because they want it to come out that way. Besides, the correlations they refer to here are VERY weak, less than 2.0 RR -- which most statisticians consider meaningless.

We tend to believe this study because it suits our viewpoints. But it's the same kind of study they use to bash LC, or saturated fat, or protein. Basic junk science. Let's not get too excited by this.

You're right KWalt. This is poorly done....and it didn't do any good either! http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=205746

But, it's a start!