http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29434-2004Aug24.html

A Regular Soda a Day Boosts Weight Gain
Non-Diet Drinks Also Increase Risk of Diabetes, Study Shows

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page A01

Women who drink non-diet soda or fruit punch every day gain weight
quickly and face a sharply elevated risk of diabetes, according to a
major study released yesterday.

The study of more than 50,000 U.S. nurses found that those who drank
just one serving of soda or fruit punch a day tended to gain much more
weight than those who drank less than one a month, and had more than
an 80 percent increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, the most
common form of the disease. The risk pertained to drinks sweetened
with either sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

_____Obesity_____

• Government Releases Plan Focusing on Obesity (Reuters, Aug 24,
2004)
• Obesity Raises Risk for 9 Cancer Types (Associated Press, Aug
24, 2004)
• Shrinking the Universe (The Washington Post, Aug 24, 2004)
• Number of Americans Who Have High Blood Pressure Up Sharply
(The Washington Post, Aug 24, 2004)
• Obesity Raises Risk for 9 Cancer Types (Associated Press, Aug
23, 2004)
• More Stories



   
 
 _____Health Calculators_____

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_____Sally Squires_____

• Past Lean Plate Club Columns
• Lean Plate Club Discussion Transcripts



_____Diabetes_____

• Risk Syndrome Found In Overweight Teens (The Washington Post,
Aug 12, 2003)
• FDA Clarifies Guidelines for Approval of Drugs, Devices (The
Washington Post, Jan 31, 2003)
• A Self-Test for Diabetics (The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2003)
• Regimen Offers Hope for Some Diabetics (The Washington Post,
Apr 30, 2002)
• For Tribes, Traditions May Be Key to a Healthier Future (The
Washington Post, Apr 9, 2002)
• Diabetes News




Although previous studies have linked such drinks to obesity and
diabetes, the association has been the subject of intense debate as
health activists have fought to ban soda vending machines from schools
and the sugar industry has lobbied against dietary guidelines that
discourage sugar consumption by children and adults. The new study is
by far the largest and best-designed and one of the first to examine
the issue in adults.

"The message is: Anyone who cares about their health or the health of
their family would not consume these beverages," said Walter C.
Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, who helped conduct the
study. "Parents who care about their children's health should not keep
them at home."

Neither diet soda nor unsweetened fruit juices appear to carry the
same risks, the researchers found. Although the study involved only
women, the researchers believed that the risks also hold for men.

Other experts agreed, saying the study represented a milestone in the
debate over soft drink consumption, which has skyrocketed in the past
20 years with the rising obesity epidemic.

"While it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that soda causes weight
gain because it's high in calories, these findings are very
significant. I think they are really a wake-up call to the consumer of
soft drink beverages, to the government, to the community, to primary
care providers," said Caroline M. Apovian of the Boston University
School of Medicine, who wrote an editorial accompanying the findings
in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The sugar and beverage industries said the study was fundamentally
flawed.

"The conclusions from this study are scientifically unsound, and they
are at odds with all that's known in the scientific community," said
Richard Adamson, vice president for scientific and technical affairs
at the American Beverage Association. "These allegations are
inflammatory."

Among the study's many problems, Adamson said, the researchers failed
to take into consideration a host of other variables that could
account for the apparent risk. Women who drink a lot of soda may
simply have generally unhealthy lifestyles, he said.

"If they would have adjusted for all the confounding factors, they
would not have found any risk at all," he said.

Any increased risk for diabetes in the study could be attributed to
the weight the women gained, not their sugar intake, said Charles
Baker, vice president for scientific affairs for the Sugar
Association.

"It's not about sugar. It's about calorie imbalance," Baker said.

But other nutrition experts hailed the research.

"This is a strong study, which joins a number of others in showing
that soft drink consumption is related to poor diet and obesity, yet
the soft drink industry says the opposite," said Kelly Brownell, who
is director of the Yale University Center for Eating and Weight
Disorders. "They lose credibility by the day. Reducing soft drink
consumption may be a powerful means of addressing the obesity crisis."

In the study, Willett and his colleagues analyzed data collected from
Nurses' Health Study II, an ongoing project involving 91,249 women
designed to examine an abundance of health issues by regularly
questioning the women in depth over many years.

Data collected from 51,603 women over an average of four years found
that the women who gained the most weight were those who increased
their consumption of non-diet drinks from one or fewer per week to one
or more per day, the researchers found. Such women gained an average
of 10.3 pounds, compared with an average of slightly less than three
pounds for those who consumed one drink or less per week.

In addition, those who had one or more drinks containing sugar or corn
syrup per day were 83 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes
than those who drank less than one such drink per month. Diabetes, a
chronic blood sugar disorder that puts victims at risk for a variety
of serious complications, is becoming increasingly common in the
United States.

"Putting down all that sugar is not a healthy thing to do," Willett
said in a telephone interview. "That's the bottom line."

He said the findings held true even after the researchers adjusted for
a variety of factors that could explain the findings, such as how much
exercise the women were getting and how well they ate overall.

The findings suggest that there is something especially unhealthy
about calories consumed in liquid form, Apovian said.

"It seems that when you drink your calories as opposed to eating them,
your body may not sense that you've just taken in those calories and
your appetite doesn't seem to compensate," Apovian said. "The appetite
circuit might not be programmed to register liquid calories."

*****

This is what I've been saying in sci.med.nutrition for going on four
years now.

Apologies and retractions will now be graciously accepted.

TC