If you are drinking sodas and other sweetened drinks, think again. A study conducted by experts from Harvard, Tufts and Washington universities in the United States and Imperial College London in Great Britain found that drinking sugary beverages could lead to 184,000 deaths every year worldwide, CBS News reports. The study was published in the journal Circulation. The experts projected that the figure will increase if no drastic action is done.
On the other hand, the study found that dietary fat, once considered as the culprit behind various diseases, has been reprieved. More and more studies, meanwhile, pointed out sugar intake as the reason behind various chronic diseases, obesity and fatality.
Diabetes is the main result of drinking sugary drinks, which claims the lives of 133,000 people every year. This was followed by 45,000 people who die from heart disease and some 6,450 from cancer.
This was the first detailed study on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) that covered a global perspective, as well as deaths related to sugar consumption.
According to the team's lead researcher, Dr Gitanjali Singh, of the 20 countries with the highest casualties from sugary beverage consumption, almost half came from Latin America and the Caribbean, an implication that these regions have the most consumers of sweetened drinks.
The rate of individuals stricken by diseases triggered by consuming sugary drinks is already alarming, research co-author Dr. Darius Mozaffarian quips.
"This is a single dietary factor with no intrinsic health value causing tens of thousands of deaths per year," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, who works as dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University, said. He event called for the removal of sugary beverages from the market.
Aside from sodas, iced teas, fruit drinks, sports or energy drinks, and even homemade sugary beverages, should also be avoided. Meanwhile, fresh fruit juices were not included in the list because according to Dr. Holly Phillips, also a member of the research team, whole fruit juices have "some nutritional value" that would benefit the health.
