Are you a soda drinker? If so, you probably know it’s bad for your teeth and waistline, but a new study has found that drinking just two glasses of soda per day appears to be linked to a higher death rate—whether they’re sweetened with sugar or an artificial sweetener.
The study on soda
A team of researchers looked at data from more than 450,000 adults in 10 European countries. The average age of the study’s participants was 51 and 71% were women. None of the people had cancer, diabetes, heart disease or stroke at the start of the study.
Of those 450,000+ participants, 41,693 died during the follow-up, which ranged from 11.1 years to 19.2 years.
Although “soft drinks” didn’t include fruit juice, the study did cover fizzy soft drinks, energy drinks, diet and low-calorie soft fizzy drinks, and diluted syrups.
Even after ruling out the influence of things like smoking, diet, exercise, BMI, and education, the researchers found that drinking two or more glasses daily of any of these soft drinks correlated with:
- higher death risk from ALL causes in both men and women
- a higher risk of circulatory diseases (artificially sweetened soft drinks)
- a higher risk of death from digestive diseases (sugar-sweetened soft drinks)
These were all true regardless of whether BMI was included in the influencing factors, suggesting that the links probably weren’t due to body fat.
One surprise: There was no association between drinking sodas and overall cancer death.
The results were published in a paper in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Tips for quitting soda
If you’re addicted to soda, you likely know that quitting can be difficult. Consider these tips to help you dump the habit:
- Gradually start switching to caffeine-free drinks to help you break the craving.
- Stock up on plenty of non-soda drinks so you’re not tempted to go to the store. Opt for tea, flavored water or seltzer if you crave the carbonation.
- If you can’t give up the caffeine, try switching to coffee.
