This archive report was first published on 12 July 2019.
Published on July 12, 2019, a study in the British Medical Journal shed light on the potential link between sugary drinks and cancer risk.
Researchers at Université Sorbonne Paris Cité in France discovered that consuming sugary drinks with more than five percent sugar, including fruit juice, soft drinks, and sweetened milkshakes, increased cancer risk by 18 percent.
Interestingly, the study found no link between diet drinks using zero-calorie artificial sweeteners and cancer risk.
The study, which followed over 100,000 participants for five years, found that for every 1,000 people in the study, there were 22 cancers.
Of the 2,193 cancers found during the study, 693 were breast cancers, 291 were prostate cancers, and 166 were colorectal cancers.
According to the research, drinking an extra 100ml of sugary drinks a day would result in four more cancers.
Dr. Mathilde Touvier, one of the researchers, noted, “Sugary drinks are known to be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, overweight, obesity, and diabetes. But what we show is they are also associated, maybe, with cancer risk.”
The researchers recommended that more large-scale studies are needed to corroborate the findings and support existing nutritional recommendations to limit sugary drink consumption.
