Cancer risk increases with sweet drinks
The link between sugary drinks and certain
health risks, such as obesity, diabetes, certain cancers, and heart
disease has been well-established in the medical world, as are the
devastating effects of added sugar on one’s health, linking it to cancer
and tumor growth. Still, when sugar is naturally present in a fruit, it
must be healthier and so drinking 100% natural juice is OK, right?
Well, the answer to that question is complicated.
While there is a general consensus that
naturally-occurring sugars found in dairy and plant-based foods are more
nutritious and better for you than added sugars, it turns out that
natural sugars, too, can harm our bodies in the long term. This is
especially apparent in concentrated products, such as syrups and juices,
which, despite being absolutely natural, can have adverse effects
similar to sugary drinks on our health, even when they contain no added
sugar.
A particularly interesting example showcasing this effect is a recent
large scale French observational study investigating the cancer risks
linked to sweet beverages. 101.257 French adults of the average age of
42 years participated in the study, and the experiment looked at how
drinking different sweet drinks affected their risks of getting
different types of cancer over a period of 9 years.
The types of drinks included in the survey were:
Soft drinks
Fruit beverages
Syrups
100% fruit juices with no added sugar
Energy drinks
Milk-based beverages
Sports drinks
Diet soft drinks
Sugar-free syrups
Diet milk-based drinks.
During the 9-year observation period,
2.193 participants developed some form of cancer. Of these, there were
693 cases of breast cancer, 291 prostate cancer, and 166 colorectal
cancer. The analysis of the study results has shown that a 100 ml (3.4
oz) increase of sugary drinks raised one’s risk of cancer by 18%, and of
breast cancer in particular by 22%.
The experimenters then looked at only the effect of 100% juices on
cancer risks and found that participants who drank it were more likely
to get cancer (particularly breast cancer, but not colorectal cancer or
prostate cancer) than the controls. Only the consumption of diet drinks
wasn’t correlated with increased cancer risks, but the authors point out
that this is likely because the “diet drink group” consumed very little
sweet beverages compared to the other groups, so we should take those
particular findings with a grain of salt.
What is added sugar and how it sneaks into the foods we buy.
So let’s unpack all of this information: the study concluded that
drinking sweet beverages of any kind can increase the risk of cancer.
These findings are alarming, as sweet drinks are so popular and many of
us have a bottle of orange juice sitting in the fridge right now.
One last point that's necessary to point out is that the participants
studied in this experiment were quite young and health-conscious, which
means that the risks for an average consumer may be even higher than
what was mentioned in the study. And while we wait for more research to
come up on this subject, secretly hoping they will legitimize our juice
cravings, we might as well replace that bottle of OJ in the fridge with
some plain old water.