Sugar is in many things we drink, like sodas and fruit punches. For people with type 2 diabetes, drinking a lot of these sugary drinks could be harmful.
A long study shows these drinks could lead to early death, especially because of heart problems.
What is Type 2 Diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes is a condition where your body doesn’t use sugar well. This sugar, called glucose, comes from the food we eat. It gives us energy.
But in people with type 2 diabetes, too much sugar stays in the blood instead of going into cells. This can hurt different parts of the body over time.
Many people around the world have type 2 diabetes. About 537 million adults had it in 2021. That number could go up to 783 million by 2045.
Why Sugary Drinks Can Be Harmful
Dr. Qi Sun is a professor who studied drinks and diabetes. He and his team looked at more than 9,200 women and more than 3,500 men. All of these people had type 2 diabetes.
The team watched what these people drank for 18.5 years. They wanted to see if what people drank was connected to health problems.
What they found was simple. Drinking more sugary drinks was not good for health. If a person with diabetes had one more sugary drink every day, they could be 8% more likely to die early.
But not all drinks are bad. Some drinks can be good for you. The study found that coffee, tea, water, and low-fat milk could help. If someone swapped a sugary drink for one of these, they could lower their risk of dying early.
Coffee seemed especially good. Swapping a soda for a coffee might lower the risk by 18%.
Of course, this study doesn’t mean sugary drinks cause early death. It just shows that there’s a link.
Other Drinks and Choices
There are other drinks out there too. What about those?
Drinks with fake sugar were better than sugary drinks but not as good as coffee or tea. If you swapped a sugary drink for one with fake sugar, the risk of dying early could drop a bit.
Fruit juices are tricky. They have sugar, but it’s natural. They also have good things our body needs. They’re better than sodas, but maybe not as good as some other choices.
Dr. Nita Gandhi Forouhi, another expert, wrote about this study. She thinks it tells us something important. If you have type 2 diabetes, it’s a good idea to drink less soda and more healthy drinks.
Forouhi also mentioned that the study didn’t talk about different kinds of tea. Or if adding sugar to coffee changes things. These are good questions for another time.
For now, the main point is simple: choosing the right drink matters. Drinks give us calories, but some also have good stuff our body needs. Others don’t. If we choose wisely, we can live healthier.
Connie Diekman knows a lot about food and health. She used to be the president of a big nutrition group. She says sugary drinks are like empty calories.
They don’t make us feel full. So, we can drink a lot and not even know it. A better life is about balance. We should pick drinks that give us good things, not just sugar.
Diekman has an idea for people with diabetes. They should talk to a food expert. This expert can help them decide what to eat and drink.
In fact, everyone should think about what they drink. Maybe try this: for three days, write down every drink you have. How much soda is on that list? Can you drink less? If you change things slowly, it will be easier to keep it up.
This whole story about drinks and health was shared on April 19 in a magazine called The BMJ. It reminds us to think about what we drink. It’s a simple change that might help us live better.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies that eating more eggs is linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, and how to eat to reduce heart disease death risk if you have diabetes.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about high-protein diets linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, and results showing Mediterranean diet could help reduce the diabetes risk by one-third.
The study was published in The BMJ.
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