Sam Nickerson | EcoWatch
Cutting soft drinks from your diet — even if they're artificially sweetened — might be one of the simplest ways to boost your health and longevity, according to a new study published this week.
The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that drinking two or more glasses of sugary or diet soft drinks per day compared to one is associated with a higher risk of early death from all causes.
For the study, around 50 researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer tracked more than 451,000 adults from 10 European countries — none of whom had already been diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, heart disease or stroke beforehand — for up to 19 years, making it one of the first of its kind in Europe.
They found that men and women who had two or more glasses of sugary drinks per day had a higher risk of death from digestive diseases affecting the liver, pancreas, intestines and appendix. Drinking the same amount of artificially sweetened diet drinks daily was associated with a higher risk of dying from circulatory diseases. In general, drinking soft drinks was associated with Parkinson's disease, but the researchers found no link to cancer or Alzheimer's risk.
The researchers looked at consumption of “fizzy soft drinks,” “low calorie or diet dizzy soft drinks” and “fruit squash or cordials,” CNN reported, with one glass being 8 fluid ounces.
The study was limited by the fact that it only showed association and not causality, but its findings add weight to previous research suggesting that sugary drinks can significantly impact your health.
In March, a study by Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that drinking two or more sugary drinks per day increased women's risk of an early death by as much as 63 percent and men's risk by 29 percent.
