Sugary drinks seem to be a problem all around the world.
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By contributing to obesity and, through that, to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks appears to kill about 25,000 American adults yearly and is linked worldwide to the deaths of 180,000 each year, new research says.
The team analyzed 1980-2010 sugary drink consumption data from 62 surveys involving 611,971 people over 51 countries. The study, conducted by researchers from Tufts University, found that the beverages would be responsible for 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 45,000 from cardiovascular disease and 6,450 from cancer.
The study was published on Monday in the journal Circulation. The best bet is to consume fruits, whole, than consuming an aerated sweetened drink or a packed fruit juice.
The researchers also associated the general quantity of sugar available in the nation with the country’s frequency of contracting diabetes, cancers and cardiovascular disease. Actually, the number of deaths caused by sodas – which is 405 deaths per million adults – exceeds the number of deaths from crimes in the Latin American country where roughly 15,649 murders were recorded in 2014.
Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author of the study and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts Universality, believes that in light of the deaths linked to drinking sugar-laden beverages it “should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet”.
“We need to talk a lot more about the harms of sugar-sweetened beverages to change the culture so that you don’t have Beyoncé and Michael Jordan – two people whom I admire – selling soda and sports drinks”.
Concerned about the chronically poor health of its population, the Mexican government is encouraging people to kick their sugar addiction by slapping taxes on high-calorie drinks and junk food. The researchers said this was the first detailed global report on the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages. Also particularly at risk are young adults, who are more likely to develop chronic diseases due to their over-consumption of sweet beverages.
Mozaffarian pointed to a preliminary report released earlier this month showing an average reduction of six percent in sugary drink consumption in Mexico, which passed a 10 percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in 2014.
“It also raises concerns about the future”.
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“If these young people continue to consume high levels as they age, the effects of high consumption will be compounded by the effects of aging, leading to even higher death and disability rates from heart disease and diabetes than we are seeing now”, Singh said.
