Sugary Drinks Linked to 25,000 U.S. Deaths.

In a study that's sure to shake up the soda ban debate, Harvard researchers have linked the sugary drinks to 180,000 deaths a year worldwide, 25,000 in the United States alone.

 

"We know that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity, and that a large number of deaths are caused by obesity-related diseases. But until now, nobody had really put these pieces together," said Gitanjali Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study presented today at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in New Orleans.

Singh and colleagues spent five years putting the pieces together. Using data from national health surveys around the world, the team tied sugar-sweetened beverages to 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases and 6,000 deaths from cancer in 2010.
The study adds to mounting evidence that sugar-sweetened beverages, loaded with calories that carry little nutritional value, are a public health hazard.
"I think our findings should really impel policymakers to make effective policies to reduce sugary beverage consumption since it causes a significant number of deaths," said Singh, adding that she thinks "cause" is an appropriate word despite the limitations of the association study.

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