Now that the weather is warmer, I’m drinking more water. Occasionally, I’ll sip a cup of tea or enjoy 100 percent fruit juice. But I stay away from regular and diet sodas and sweetened fruit drinks.
I have a theory that drinking sodas and fruit drinks leads to weight gain. Support for my theory comes in a recently published paper in the journal Obesity.
In it, Barry Popkin’s research shows that our national habit of drinking sweetened beverages plays a major role in making us fat. Popkin is a beverage researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Study results
The Chapel Hill researchers looked at changes in beverage consumption from 1965 to 2002, using nationally representative data from four large surveys of food intake in the United States.
They found that the average calories consumed from beverages per day increased from 236 calories in 1965 to 458 calories in 2002.
This represents an increase of 222 calories per person per day. The percentage of total daily calories consumed from beverages almost doubled, going from 12 percent to 21 percent over the 35-year period.
In addition, the proportion of the population taking in a quarter or more of total daily calories from beverages grew. It rose from 17 percent in 1965 to 30 percent in 2002 — once again, nearly doubling.
“We report that beverages are now contributing a greater number of total calories to daily intake and represent a larger proportion of daily caloric intake than at any other time in the past,” note the researchers.
Other studies have linked consuming excess calories from beverages with the national obesity epidemic.
Drinking calories
We’ve been convinced that we need to drink more. And the “more” usually comes from soft drinks, fruit drinks, and sweetened coffee and tea rather than plain water, Popkin says.
Typically, however, people don’t compensate for the added beverage calories by eating less food.
One study, for instance, compared the results of consuming an extra 450 calories a day worth of fruit drinks vs. eating an equivalent amount of jelly beans. After four weeks, the participants gained significantly more weight when they drank the calories rather than eating them.
Research suggests that fluid calories don’t really seem to have an impact on appetite regulation like the calories from food.
Weight-loss tips
Popkin decided to conduct another study. He measured the caloric intake of 118 overweight women between the ages of 25 and 50 who regularly consumed sweetened caloric beverages.
Popkin found that participants who replaced the beverages with drinking water were able to achieve and maintain a significant reduction in caloric intake over a period of 12 months. The women also experienced reductions in body weight, body fat and waist size.
Moreover, the women who drank more water did not compensate for the fewer calories with a greater intake of food or other beverages.
This is something that users of diet drinks have not been able to replicate in weight-loss studies — perhaps because artificial sweeteners may stimulate appetite, some research suggests.
In Popkin’s study, the women who replaced all sweetened caloric beverages with water consumed an average of 200 fewer calories a day.
So, reducing intake of sweetened beverages looks like an effective means of weight control. And for this purpose, I can think of no better drink than plain water.
For more information: Dietary Guidelines for Americans, www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines.
Contact Dr. Elizabeth Smoots at doctor@practicalprevention.com.
&Copy; 2008 Elizabeth S. Smoots
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