During the past several decades, average consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, tea and energy drinks by Americans has increased -- alongside increasing obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Vasanti Malik and others observed in the November 2006 issue of "Diabetes Care" that per capita consumption of calories from sugar-sweetened beverages more than doubled between 1970 and 2006.
Type 2 Diabetes Risk Factors
Being overweight or obese is the primary risk factor for diabetes. Other risk factors include being inactive, having a family history of diabetes, or coming from a Hispanic, Black, Asian or Native American background. Risk of developing diabetes also increases as you age, and grows if you carry excess fat concentrated around your abdomen.
Soda and Obesity
Soda is primarily linked to raising your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by increasing your risk of becoming overweight or obese. In "The Journal of School Nursing," Susan Harrington points out that for every can or glass of sugar-sweetened beverage a child drinks, odds of that child becoming obese increases 1.6 times. A review in "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" of 30 published studies investigating the link between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity found evidence was conclusive enough to discourage the public from drinking the beverages.
Insulin Resistance
After controlling for increased BMI in their study, Matthias Shultze and others found that increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes correlated with drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is only about 50 percent attributable to the increase in obesity associated with drinking these beverages. It is possible that the large amounts of immediately available sugars that beverages deposit into your body have a negative effect on your body's ability to regulate glucose, which leads to Type 2 diabetes.
Diet Soda
You might think you could bypass the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by switching to diet soda, but that is not likely the case. Jennifer Nettleton and others published a study in "Diabetes Care" that demonstrates a 67 percent greater relative risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in subjects who consumed at least one diet soda a day compared to subjects who did not. The observed increased risk was independent of whether the subjects were overweight. The cause of diet soda being linked with increased risk of diabetes is unclear, since the artificial sweeteners they contain are not digestible, but the link alone is cause for caution when you are selecting beverages.
References
- "Diabetes Care"; Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes: A meta-analysis; Vasanti Malik, et al.; November 2010
- "The Journal of School Nursing"; The Role of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption in Adolescent Obesity: A Review of the Literature; Susan Harrington; February 2008
- "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Intake of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Weight Gain: A Systematic Review; Vasanti Malik, et al.; August 2006
- "Diabetes Care"; Diet Soda Intake and Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis; Jennifer Nettleton, et al.; April 2009
- "The Lancet"; Relation Between Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Drinks and Childhood Obesity: A Prosepctive, Observational Analysis; David Ludwig, et al.; February 2001
- "Journal of the American Medical Association"; Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Weight Gain, and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Young and Middle-Aged Women; Matthias Shultze, et al.; August 2004
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