Study finds diabetes more likely in daily soda drinkers

CHICAGO – Women who drink more than one sweetened soft drink a day are more likely to develop diabetes than women who drink less than one a month, according to a new study.

But critics of the study noted the same conclusion might be drawn from examining eating habits involving other forms of junk food, too.

Obesity is strongly linked to type 2 diabetes – the most common form of diabetes – so the extra calories from soda account for at least some of the increased risk, said the Harvard University researchers who did the study.

But the scientists said there also appears to be a link to the way the body handles the sugars in soft drinks, a claim two outside experts said needs more research.

Globally, type 2 diabetes, a condition that often leads to heart disease and kidney failure, afflicts 154 million people and is blamed for about 3 million deaths a year.

The soft drink study appeared in Tuesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers found that women drinking one or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks a day were twice as likely to develop diabetes as women who drank fewer than one a month. Even when they considered such factors as weight, diet and lifestyle differences, the researchers still found that women drinking sugary sodas were 1.3 times as likely to develop diabetes.

That led the scientists to suggest that in addition to extra calories, the beverages might also increase diabetes risk because their high amount of rapidly absorbed sugars causes a dramatic rise in glucose and insulin concentrations in the body, said Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and one of the study’s co-authors.

Fruit juice consumption was not associated with diabetes risk, and diet soft drinks were not statistically significant, but sugared fruit punch showed similar results to sugared soda.

The American Beverage Association’s Richard Adamson called the study’s conclusions “not scientifically based.”

“I think a careful reading leads to a conclusion that it’s really an unhealthy lifestyle, not sweetened beverages, that increases the risk of type 2 diabetes,” said Adamson, the association’s vice president of scientific and technical affairs.