Giving Up One Sugary Drink Per Day Could Reduce Type 2 Diabetes Risk By 25 percent

Replacing one serving of a sugary drink with water, tea or coffee can be a daily decision that significantly reduces diabetes risk, according to new research.

A large UK study of more than 25,000 people found that simply reducing consumption of soda or artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) could lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by between 14 and 25 percent.

By having participants keep a detailed food diary for seven consecutive days, researchers were able to determine that diabetes risk increased with consumption of soft drinks, sweetened milk beverages and ASBs, but not with consumption of fruit juice, sweetened tea or sweetened coffee.

Consuming ASBs instead of sugar-sweetened drinks wasn't associated with a reduction in type 2 diabetes, the researchers found.

Unsweetened is still the healthiest option

While juice and sweetened coffee drinks weren't linked to an increased risk of diabetes, the study found that replacing one sugary drink with unsweetened coffee, tea or water would provide the most health benefits in terms of diabetes prevention.


The researchers estimated that cutting total daily energy intake from sweetened beverages to below 5 percent would be associated with a 7-percent reduction of new-onset diabetes cases.

"Our new findings on the potential to reduce the burden of diabetes by reducing the percentage of energy consumed from sweet beverages add further important evidence to the recommendation from the World Health Organization to limit the intake of free sugars in our diet," said Dr Nita Forouhi, of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

The study is published in Diabetologia.

Source: EurekAlert!


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