Scientists have placed sugary soft drinks on that black list of foods, drinks and lifestyle habits that increase the risk of cancer. The latest research warns that the abuse of these sugary drinks increases deaths from health-related causes. One of these studies shows that women who drink one soft drink a day increase their chances of suffering from liver cancer. Doctors and nutritionists have long declared war on them and are calling for them to be discarded from diets, while the World Health Organization is demanding effective measures from countries to limit their consumption.
The research conducted by Harvard University followed more than 90,000 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 79 for nearly two decades. About 7% of participants indicated that they drank one or more sugary drinks per day. The results showed that those who drank at least one soft drink a day had a 73% higher risk of liver cancer, compared to those who never drank them or ate less than three a month. The authors of the work drew a conclusion: reducing the consumption of sugary drinks serves as a public health strategy to reduce the incidence of liver cancer.
Scientists from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) completed another study in which 452,000 people of both sexes from ten European countries took part. After a follow-up of more than fifteen years, the researchers found that sweetened drinks increase the incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, “risk factors for liver cancer.” The results, published in the journal ‘JAMA Internal Medicine’, maintain that drinking soft drinks daily – both sugary and artificially sweetened – is also related “to a greater risk of death from circulatory or digestive diseases.”
Effects on the body
But what effect do they have on the body that makes them so harmful? «When we drink a sugary drink we flood our digestive tract with fructose dissolved in water, which is quickly absorbed by the intestinal cells, to the point of overflowing them. Then it reaches the liver, where it is transformed into fat,” describes Marta Alegret, doctor in Pharmacy and researcher.
The liver is responsible for distributing this excess fat throughout our body. «If this happens in isolation, it is not of major importance. But if consumption is abundant and frequent, in the long run we will have health problems. The excess fat deposited in our body causes obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol…
Over time, “metabolic disorders will increase the risk of suffering a heart attack or even a cancerous process,” he adds. The researcher reminds us that scientific studies “associate a higher incidence of cancer with greater sugar consumption.” And she warns that natural fruit juices also cause similar negative health effects. «When drinking juice we ingest much more fruit than if we had to peel and chew it. Furthermore, since we do not take fructose in its natural envelope, it is absorbed suddenly, and quickly reaches the liver,” she adds. And it triggers this process that is harmful to health.
Alcohol-like harm
«The habitual consumption of added sugars has toxic effects on the liver, similar to those produced by alcohol. The health dangers that added sugars entail, especially, are of such magnitude that they justify a control similar to that of the drink,” supports the specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health Miguel Ángel Martínez. “Some studies link sugar abuse, in addition to cancer, with premature cognitive problems,” he says.
1,800
million liters of soft drinks and carbonated drinks
They are consumed annually in Spanish homes – more so in those with children. They are about 40 liters per person. The preferred ones are the tail ones. At the head are Castilla La Mancha, Andalusia, Murcia and the Balearic Islands. And the communities with the least consumption are La Rioja and Navarra.
In recent years, the consumption of sugary drinks has been partly replaced by other sweetened ones, but it is not a solution. The World Health Organization has recently published a recommendation in which it advises against the use of sweeteners, since they offer no long-term benefit in reducing body fat and increase the risk of suffering from type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in Adults.
The WHO has called for raising taxes on soft drinks. In 2020, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs proposed raising the VAT on these drinks from 10% to 21%, within the action plan against childhood obesity. However, the sector’s employers opposed the Government’s decision, and in the end it only affected commerce and not restaurants. Even so, it managed to reduce consumption.
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