Many children and teenagers enjoy soda, fruit punch, sports drinks, and fruit juice. These drinks are often part of everyday meals and snacks. Some of them are heavily marketed as refreshing or even healthy.
However, scientists are increasingly finding that what people drink early in life may have long-lasting effects on their health.
High blood pressure is one of the world’s leading causes of heart disease and stroke. It develops when the force of blood against the walls of the arteries remains too high over time. Because high blood pressure often causes no symptoms, many people do not know they have it until complications develop.
Doctors are also noticing a worrying trend. High blood pressure is appearing at younger ages than before. Increasing numbers of children, teenagers, and young adults are developing elevated blood pressure, raising concerns about future cardiovascular health.
A new study published in Circulation suggests that certain beverage habits beginning in childhood may contribute to this problem. Researchers found that drinking sugary beverages and consuming large amounts of fruit juice may increase the likelihood of developing high blood pressure later in life.
The study was led by researchers at the University of Toronto and analyzed information from more than 25,000 participants in a long-term study of American youths.
Participants regularly answered questions about their diets over many years. They reported how often they consumed sugar-sweetened beverages, fruit juice, and whole fruits. They also provided information about exercise habits, smoking, and other lifestyle factors. Researchers followed participants for up to 25 years.
The results showed that people who drank at least two servings of sugary beverages every day had a 52 percent higher risk of developing high blood pressure compared with those who rarely consumed these drinks.
Not all sugary drinks carried exactly the same level of risk. Every daily serving of soda was associated with a 23 percent higher risk of high blood pressure. Each daily serving of sports drinks was linked to a 36 percent higher risk.
Fruit juice also produced unexpected findings. People who drank one and a half servings or more of fruit juice each day had a 35 percent higher risk of developing high blood pressure.
Many people assume fruit juice is always healthy because it comes from fruit. However, juice contains a large amount of natural sugar and much less fiber than whole fruit. Fiber helps slow the absorption of sugar and may contribute to better overall health.
The researchers also tested what might happen if people replaced these beverages with other foods and drinks. Their models suggested that replacing one daily serving of sugary beverages with whole fruit was associated with a 22 percent lower risk of high blood pressure. Replacing fruit juice with whole fruit was linked to a 19 percent lower risk.
Substituting sugary drinks with water or milk was also associated with a lower risk of high blood pressure.
Interestingly, the researchers found that the total amount of fructose may not be the whole story. The source of the sugar appears to matter. Sugar consumed in beverages may affect the body differently from sugar consumed in whole fruits.
The findings also challenge a common belief that all fruit juice is automatically beneficial. While small amounts of 100 percent fruit juice may fit into a balanced diet, drinking large quantities may not provide the same health benefits as eating whole fruit.
The study cannot prove that sugary beverages and fruit juice directly cause high blood pressure because it was observational research. Nevertheless, the findings are important because they suggest that dietary habits established early in life may influence health decades later.
The study’s findings reinforce the importance of encouraging children and adolescents to choose healthier beverages. Whole fruit, water, and milk may be better long-term options than sugary drinks and excessive amounts of fruit juice.
Preventing high blood pressure may start with simple daily choices made during childhood, long before signs of cardiovascular disease begin to appear.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about how diets could help lower high blood pressure, and 3 grams of omega-3s a day keep high blood pressure at bay.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how tea and coffee influence your risk of high blood pressure, and results showing this olive oil could reduce blood pressure in healthy people.
Source: University of Toronto.
