A new study suggests that sugary drinks are claiming at least 25,000 lives in the United States. The country ranks next to Mexico among the countries with the most consumption of sodas, sports drinks and fruit drinks.
Researchers at Tuft University conducted a study to determine the effect of sugary drinks on death rates among 51 countries. The study is the first to analyze it on a global scale. They looked at the national dietary surveys answered by 611,971 participants between 1980 and 2010.
The team counted the number of deaths due to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancers which they believe were worsened by high consumption of sugary drinks.
The findings showed that about 25,000 people die per year due to high consumption of sugary drinks. The researchers only tallied those drinks that have at least 50 calories per 8-ounce serving; 100 percent fruit juices were not included.
The researchers warned that if people do not proactively cut their sugary drink consumption, more people would die and the consequences could be serious. About 184,000 adults die due to high consumption of sugary drinks per year; 74 percent of the deaths were due to diabetes complications.
"Many countries in the world have a significant number of deaths occurring from a single dietary factor, sugar-sweetened beverages. It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet," Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author of the study and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University in Boston, said in a university news release.
The beverage industry remains skeptical of the findings.
"This study does not show that consuming sugar-sweetened beverages causes chronic diseases and the authors themselves acknowledge that they are at best estimating effects of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption," the American Beverage Association said in a statement, quoted by LiveScience.
The CDC released a report last year showing that one in four U.S. adults consume regular soda, fruit drinks or both on a daily basis.
The study was published in the June 29 issue of the journal Circulation.
