New York, 29 July - The more soft drinks and sugar-sweetened fruit drinks a woman consumes, the greater is her likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, new findings from the Black Women's Health Study demonstrate.
The results point to a simple way for people to reduce their type 2 diabetes risk, and lose weight too: switch to diet soda and water. "This is something that people can do that will reduce their risk no matter what their baseline weight is," Dr. Julie R. Palmer of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, one of the researchers, told Reuters Health.
Studies have linked soft drink consumption to diabetes risk, but less is known about sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, which are often promoted as a healthy alternative to soda, Palmer noted in an interview. These drinks have as many or more calories as soft drinks, she added, and their consumption among Americans is on the rise.
African-American women have a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, largely because of weight issues, Palmer and her team note in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
To investigate the relationship between consumption of sugary beverages, weight gain and type 2 diabetes risk in this population, they looked at 43,960 women participating in the Black Women's Health Study. All were free from type 2 diabetes at the study's outset, but 2,713 developed the disease during the 10-year follow-up period.
Women who drank two soft drinks a day were 24% more likely than those who had a soft drink less than once a week to develop type 2 diabetes, after the researchers adjusted for other factors that might influence the relationship such as education, physical activity, and family history of diabetes.
Drinking two or more sugar-sweetened fruit juices a day boosted diabetes risk by 31%.
However, there was no relationship between drinking orange or grapefruit juice and diabetes risk.
While orange juice has about as many calories as soft drinks or sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, "you get a lot of nutrients with those calories, and people don't tend to drink 20 ounces of orange juice at one time," Palmer noted.
The weight gain that accompanied sugary beverage consumption was the main reason for the association with type 2 diabetes, Palmer said.
"One of the interesting smaller findings in our study ... is that we found the people who drank these fruit drinks were people who had these generally healthy habits," she added. "It looks like people who drink fruit drinks really are concerned about their health, are trying to do the right thing."
While people typically drink orange or grapefruit juice with meals, Palmer noted, sodas and sweetened fruit drinks are often consumed between meals.
"Even if the use of excess refined carbohydrate in liquid form in the diet does not specifically provoke the development of hyperglycemia (high blood glucose), excess intake of sweetened drinks seems to make it easier to consume too many calories chronically," Drs. Mark N. Feinglos and Susan E. Totten of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, write in an editorial accompanying the study.
"Our number 1 goal for the reduction of new cases of type 2 diabetes mellitus," they conclude, "should be to reduce the intake of high-energy, low-benefit foods, particularly in young members of the most vulnerable populations."