Study: Drop One Sugary Drink Daily, Drop Diabetes Risk Greatly

Drop One Sugary Drink Daily
Drop One Sugary Drink Daily

(HealthDay News) — Exchanging one sugar-sweetened beverage for water or unsweetened coffee or tea daily could lower diabetes risk by up to 25%, according to research reported online April 30 in Diabetologia.

Nita Forouhi, MD, PhD, of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and colleagues based their findings on detailed food diaries from 25,639 middle-aged and older British adults, who were diabetes-free when they entered the study. Over the next decade, 847 were diagnosed with the disease.

Overall, the more sugary soda or sweetened milk that people consumed, the higher their risk of developing diabetes. For every extra daily serving, the risk of diabetes rose by about 22%. The researchers estimate that replacing just one sugary drink every day with water or unsweetened coffee or tea could lower people's diabetes risk by 14–25%.

There was no evidence that artificially sweetened drinks would have the same benefit. In fact, people who favored those drinks had a higher diabetes risk. But Forouhi's team found an apparent explanation: Fans of diet drinks were often obese or had a family history of diabetes – suggesting that people at high risk of diabetes were opting for artificially sweetened drinks.

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