June 11, 2024 – You know sugary drinks are bad for you, so that you limit them – just a number of sodas every week. Plus, you exercise often, so that you're doing superb, right?
Maybe not. Sugar-sweetened beverages – those with added sugar similar to soda, lemonade, fruit punch and sports drinks – can harm your health, even sparsely, said Lorena PachecoPhD, a registered dietitian and nutrition researcher at Harvard's TH Chan School of Public Health.
“As a nutritionist myself, I agree with the fact that we should strive for moderation,” Pacheco said – but not in terms of sugar-sweetened beverages. “These drinks are liquid candy and harmful to health.” They must be avoided and never enjoyed sparsely, she said.
In an eye-opening 12 months 2024 study In a survey of greater than 100,000 people, Pacheco found that those that exercised often and drank just two sugary drinks per week had a 15% higher risk of heart disease than lively individuals who abstained from sugary drinks. Participants who drank two sugary drinks per week and didn't exercise faced a good greater risk: They had an almost 50% higher risk of developing heart disease.
“Marketing campaigns emphasize that sugar-sweetened beverages have no negative effects on people’s health. [as long as you exercise],” said Pacheco. “Based on our findings, this is not true. For this reason, it is best to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages as much as possible and replace these drinks with water.”
Why is liquid sugar so unhealthy?
It’s no secret that an excessive amount of added sugar – in any form – can result in poor health, but the buildup Proof suggests that liquid sugar is especially problematic.
For one thing, sugar-sweetened beverages often lack other nutrients — similar to fiber, protein and fats — that slow the digestion of sugar and delay its absorption into the blood, said nutritionist Jonathan Clinthorne, PhD, director of nutrition at Denver-based Simply Good Foods Company. Liquids even have a shorter Gastric emptying time than solid food – they move much faster from the stomach to the small intestine. This forces your body to metabolize large amounts of sugar without delay, which causes blood sugar levels to rise quickly and overload the vital organs.
“The extreme amounts of sugar in sugar-sweetened beverages appear to overwhelm much of the body's carbohydrate metabolism mechanisms,” said Clinthorne. “This leads to many negative side effects.”
Most of the sugar from these drinks is processed within the small intestine and “enters the portal vein, which carries the sugar to the liver,” Clinthorne said.
Two forms of sugar frequently in sugar-sweetened beverages Sucrose And High fructose corn syrup. Both contain glucose and fructose. As your liver absorbs the fructose, the glucose is transported directly into the bloodstream, spiking blood sugar levels and wreaking havoc in the method. “If sugar is not removed from the bloodstream quickly, it can react with proteins to form advanced glycation end products that are pro-inflammatory,” Clinthorne said. These harmful compounds have been linked to heart disease.
When blood sugar levels rise, the pancreas also produces insulin, a hormone that moves sugar from the blood into the body's cells, where it's stored or used for energy. Over time, the cells may not reply to insulin and grow to be insulin resistantThe pancreas responds by producing much more insulin, but sooner or later it will possibly not sustain and blood sugar rises to dangerous levels.
“High glucose levels and high insulin levels lead to blood vessel damage, diabetes and its complications,” said Jeff StanleyMD, an internist and medical director at Virta Health, a telemedicine company specializing in reversing type 2 diabetes. “Insulin resistance is a huge risk factor for cardiovascular disease.” People could be insulin resistant long before symptoms appear, he added.
And what about all that fructose that builds up in your liver? That could cause damage, too.
Natural foods like fruit also contain fructose, but there's a difference, Clinthorne said. The amount of fructose in a bit of fruit is comparatively small and straightforward to metabolize – plus, the fruit's fiber slows the absorption of fructose.
Sugar-sweetened beverages often contain quite a lot of fructose. “A banana may have a few grams of fructose, but in a sugary drink it can be 10 times that,” Clinthorne said. The liver converts excess fructose into fat, which over time can result in the event of fatty liver disease related to metabolic disorders (a condition formerly often called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease).
In fact: Research has linked excessive fructose consumption to oxidative stress, inflammation, hypertension, insulin resistance and high triglyceride levels – all aspects linked to heart disease.
Research also suggests that your brain doesn't register liquid calories in the identical way as calories from solid food. ViewsPeople who eat sugar in solid form (like candy) are likely to compensate by consuming fewer calories from other sources. In contrast, individuals who drink liquid sugar (soda) ultimately increase their overall calorie intake, resulting in weight gain.
And as if all that wasn't enough, sugar-sweetened beverages can even have harmful effects in your gut microbiome, Clinthorne said. Different sugars are absorbed and transported within the gut via different pathways.
“The pathway that absorbs fructose is probably not one of the fastest,” Clinthorne said. “This means that the gut's ability to absorb fructose may be overwhelmed, resulting in excess fructose entering the colon where it can feed microbes, leading to bacterial overgrowth.”
In Animal studiesThis bacterial imbalance has led to inflammation and intestinal permeability (a so-called leaky gut syndrome), he said, but further studies are needed to substantiate the effect in humans.
The problem with moderation
While completely eliminating sugary drinks could appear extreme, for some it's actually easier than practicing moderation, Stanley says.
For some patients, “moderation is difficult because it triggers cravings,” Stanley said.
Of course, that's not the case for everybody, warns Stanley. “We see some patients where it's really difficult not to feel disadvantaged when they're not allowed to do something.”
He recommends a minimum of attempting to avoid soda. “It may be difficult at first, but once you get past the point of craving it” – which normally takes a number of days, he said – “and find good alternatives, it can actually be easier than sticking to just one or two sodas a week.”
The secret is to search out a nice alternative, Stanley said. “Water is best,” Stanley said, but unsweetened coffee or tea (iced or hot) can provide variety. Carolyn NewberryMD, a gastroenterologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, suggested adding skim milk to coffee or tea. For soda drinkers, sparkling water can satisfy carbonation cravings, and you'll be able to add flavor with a splash of fruit juice or fresh citrus. (Try this recipe for sparkling iced tea with lemon, cucumber and mint from the Harvard School of Public Health website.)
You can even try adding sugar-free flavors to still or carbonated water, Stanley said. “We recommend xylitol, sucralose, stevia, monk fruit and allulose. These have been extensively studied and appear to be safe in moderation,” he said.
Artificial sweeteners could be controversial because research into their health effects mixed. But for many who often drink sugary drinks, sugar-free or weight loss plan alternatives “seem to be significantly healthier,” Stanley said. “So for people who really miss the taste or want something similar, that may be an option.”
Be warned that weight loss plan soda can trigger cravings, Newberry said. “There is some literature that says diet sodas can increase hunger because they provide flavor without the associated calories,” Newberry explained.
And should you just can't hand over sugary drinks? Try to limit them as much as possible. Remember, despite the fact that the study found that just two drinks every week increased the danger of heart disease, that quantity continues to be higher than drinking more.
“The damage [sugary drinks] “The question of how much risk people are taking to their health depends on the amount they consume and their other personal risk factors,” Newberry said. “The best approach is one that is both realistic and feasible.”