A whole army of studies has been run on the effects of too much Sugar in our diet. And the consensus is clear: The more excess Sugar you consume, the more likely you are to develop obesity and type 2 diabetes, both of which can lead to heart disease. But now there’s more bad news…
Green Tea: The better alternative to both SSBs and ‘diet’ drinks…
Sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) are the single largest source of excess sugar in the North American (and by association, European) diet. And, while links have been confirmed between excess Sugar and a number of serious diseases, a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the first to directly link the consumption of sugary beverages with early mortality.
What they did…
As with so many clinical studies these days, researchers data-mined the results of two long-running data collection projects of the health of Nurses and doctors participating in parallel data-gathering projects. Data were available from 80,647 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study (1980-2014) and from 37,716 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2014). For both studies, participants answered questionnaires about lifestyle factors and health status every two years.
What they found…
Results of the new study revealed a direct link between SSBs and early death: “[T]he more SSBs a person drank, the more his or her risk of early death from any cause increased. Compared with drinking SSBs less than once per month, drinking one to four sugary drinks per month was linked with a 1% increased risk; two to six per week with a 6% increase; one to two per day with a 14% increase; and two or more per day with a 21% increase. The increased early death risk linked with SSB consumption was more pronounced among women than among men.”
The takeaway…
Dr. Obvious says even his cat could figure out that drinking SSBs is a bad idea. But how bad an idea, we never knew until now.
My take…
Dr. Obvious must have a remarkable cat! But I get his point. And I’m personally disposed to stick with my preference for artificially-sweetened ‘Diet’ beverages, even though there are plenty of studies that show excessive consumption of them can be unhealthy. And I’m also going to drink fewer fizzy, sweet beverages overall as I phase in Green Tea!
~Maggie J.