Drinking water, unsweetened, tea, instead of only one sugary drink per day could be enough to prevent diabetes.
A recent study showed that every 5 percent increase of total energy intake from sweet drinks raised type 2 diabetes risk by a whopping 18 percent, the University of Cambridge reported.
To make these findings, a team of researchers looked at the EPIC-Norfolk study, which encompassed over 25,000 men and women between the ages of 40 and 79 who lived in Norfolk. These participants recorded everything they ate or drank for a period of seven days. During an 11 year follow-up period, 847 study participants were diagnosed with new-onset type 2 diabetes.
"By using this detailed dietary assessment with a food diary, we were able to study several different types of sugary beverages as well as artificially sweetened beverages - such as diet soft drinks - and fruit juice, and to examine what would happen if water, unsweetened tea or coffee or artificially sweetened beverages were substituted for sugary drinks," said study leader Nita Forouhi, of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge.
The researchers identified a 22 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes per every extra serving of soft drinks, sweetened milk, and artificially sweetened beverages. Consumption of fruit juice and sweetened tea or coffee was not linled to diabetes. After accounting for other risk factors, such as body mass index, the link with artificially sweetened beverages consumption disappeared, but the link between diabetes risk and soft drinks and sweetened milk drinks remained.
The team also found if participants replaced one habitual daily serving of soft drinks with water, tea, or coffee, the risk of diabetes dropped 14 percent. Replacing a routine serving of sweetened milk with one of these alternatives reduced risk by as much as 25 percent.
"The good news is that our study provides evidence that replacing a habitual daily serving of a sugary soft drink or sugary milk drink with water or unsweetened tea or coffee can help to cut the risk of diabetes, offering practical suggestions for healthy alternative drinks for the prevention of diabetes. This adds further important evidence to the recommendation from the World Health Organization to limit the intake of free sugars in our diet," Forouhi said.
The findings were published in a recent edition of Diabetologia.
