- The Harvard team observed a group of nearly 100,000 American women over the age of 20
- Comparison of drinking habits with the number of liver cancer cases and deaths from liver disease
- READ MORE: FDA rejects WHO’s claim that sweetener aspartame causes cancer
Women who drink just one sugary soda a day have a much higher risk of developing liver cancer, a study suggests.
A team from Harvard Medical School in Boston observed a group of nearly 100,000 American women over the age of 50 who were followed for more than 20 years.
Women who drank one or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day were 85 percent more likely to be diagnosed with liver cancer during that time compared to those who consumed less than one per week.
Daily soda drinkers were also 68 percent more likely to die from liver disease than those who drank three or fewer a month. However, the researchers note that the overall risk of death was still very low — with only about 150 deaths from the disease in the trial.
No correlation was observed between liver cancer and those who drank artificially sweetened drinks – despite recent concerns that the popular sweetener aspartame may be linked to tumor formation.
America’s 25 Sweetest Drinks RANK: Mountain Dew had the most sugar of all the drinks on the list, while Brisk Lemon Tea had the least. However, all drinks were well above or close to the daily recommended limit of sugar set by the American Heart Association
Commenting on the study, Dr. Pauline Emmett, a senior research fellow at the University of Bristol, said: ‘While this study is observational and thus cannot provide cause and effect, we know from a body of evidence that it is worth thinking twice before choosing to drink sugar-sweetened drinks every day.”
High-sugar drinks are often high in calories and increase the risk of obesity, which in itself is a risk factor for cancer and liver disease.
The massive dumping of sugar can also lead to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, which increases the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
The study followed 98,786 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 79 who had enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative from 1993 to 1998 at 40 clinical centers in the US.
They were followed up until March 1, 2020.
About 6.8 percent of women reported consuming one or more servings of sugar-sweetened beverages each day, while 13.1 percent drank one or more artificially sweetened beverages per day.
Results of the study were given in “person-years” – a measure that includes both the number of people in the study and the amount of time each person spends on the study.
The study found that the rate of liver cancer was 18 per 100,000 person-years in women who consumed one or more sugary drinks per day, but a lesser 10.3 per 100,000 person-years in women who consumed three or fewer per month.
The rate of death from chronic liver disease was also found to be 17.7 per 100,000 person-years among women who drank one or more sugar-sweetened beverages per day, but 7.1 per 100,000 person-years among those who drank three or fewer per month.
Differences in the intake of artificially sweetened beverages were again not significantly associated with mortality from chronic liver disease.
The study, published in the journal Jama Network Open reads: ‘Compared to three or fewer sugar-sweetened drinks per month, consuming one or more sugar-sweetened drinks per day was associated with a significantly higher incidence of liver cancer and death from chronic diseases. liver diseases.’
The authors added that while their study had been unable to determine how consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was associated with liver disease, some “potential pathways” include obesity, dramatic increases in blood glucose and an accumulation of fat around the include liver.