Researchers link sugary sodas to deaths
Published 1:14 pm, Wednesday, August 19, 2015
As I've written before, no one can honestly argue that soda or other sugar-sweetened beverages are a reasonable part of a healthful diet. At best, they should be an occasional treat, especially if you are thirsty. (Although a glass of water is a better choice.)
Well, even that exception may no longer be acceptable after researchers at Tufts University in Boston recently determined that these sugary drinks are responsible for 184,000 deaths worldwide each year. Though that's not as bad as tobacco, which kills 6 million each year, according to the World Health Organization, it's still astounding and distressing. Especially since soda cans don't carry hazardous-to-your-health warning labels.
The peer-reviewed study was published online June 29 in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
To come up with the 184,000 figure, researchers first collected information on sugar-sweetened beverage intake by age, sex and time of day in 51 countries. Then, using long-term observational studies, they collected evidence of how drinking soda and other sugary beverages leads to obesity and diabetes. To confirm disease-specific causes of death, they relied on data from the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors.
So there's a lot of data behind their conclusion. Yes, it sounds complex, but their modeling techniques were the same as those researchers previously used to determine the death toll from cigarette smoking and other tobacco use.
Among the countries studied, sugar-sweetened beverages, or SSBs, take their worst toll in Mexico. The researchers found that 12.1 percent of all obesity- and diabetes-related deaths can be attributed to these drinks. In fact, sugary drinks caused high rates of death throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, according to co-author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition.
"(The numbers) in those countries, when taken together, add up to substantial rates of preventable disease," he said in an interview with Tufts Now.
In a three-sentence statement in response to this study, the American Beverage Association, which represents nonalcoholic drink makers, refuted the study's findings. Here is the statement in its entirety:
"America's beverage companies are committed to being part of real solutions to public health challenges. This study does not show that consuming sugar-sweetened beverages causes chronic diseases and the authors themselves acknowledge that they are at best estimating effects of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.
"America's beverage companies are doing their part to offer consumers the fact-based information and the beverage options they need to make the right choices for themselves and their families."
In response, Mozaffarian said that the researchers stand by their methods and analysis. In fact, he said, the toll from SSBs may be worse than stated.
"This analysis also does not take into account many other obesity-related diseases, such as gallstones, depression, back pain, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and so on. As such, it underestimates the full disease burdens due to SSBs," he wrote.
Dr. Sandeep Grewal, a vocal soda critic, chimed in, too. The internal medicine specialist in South Carolina recently called on the Food and Drug Administration to reclassify soda as a poison rather than a food product. He said that though the 184,000 figure sounds reasonable, more research is needed on the link between soda and obesity- and diabetes-related death.
"We know soda increases risk of obesity and obesity doubles risk of diabetes and raises risk of heart attack and high blood pressure," Grewal said. "While we don't know how this link works, a long time ago we didn't know how cigarettes cause lung cancer. I think we'll eventually find such a link."
Perhaps the most distressing finding in this study is that sugary drinks take their greatest toll on the young.
Since people 60 and older don't drink much soda, Mozaffarian warns that if younger drinkers continue consuming at today's rate, the diseases these drinks cause will "increase dramatically."