Experts have
revealed that beverage drinks are increasingly causing deaths. According to
findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine journal, artificially sweetened
drinks, more popularly known as ‘soft drinks’ or ‘minerals’ in Nigeria are
asertained killers though they are certified for consumption.
By Chuka Nnabuife
The new research
team led by Neil Murphy, Ph.D., of the International Agency for Research on
Cancer discovered that increased consumption of soft drinks – both containing
sugar and artificially sweetened (soda) – linked to an increased risk of death
in a sample study of 452,000 people in 10 European countries.
Deemed the
largest scope of scientific study to have examined the link between soda and
death, the study team which comprised 50 researchers (all co-authors of the
report) found that intake of about two glasses of such beverage drinks a day
opens one to a very high risk of death from several ailments which is not the
case with people who drank less than one glass.
Not only was the
beverage drinks linked to an increased risk of death, it was also associated to
a variety of diseases.
The study found a
difference in the form of diseases among those who drank sugar beverages or
beverages that were artificially sweetened and those who do not. For example, a
higher risk of death from circulatory diseases was found to be connected to
drinking two or more glasses of artificially sweetened soft drinks daily.
Increased risk of
death from digestive diseases was also associated to drinking one or more glass
daily of such sugar-sweetened cups. Same brews were linked to risks of death
from Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers
used data, including soft drink consumption rosters, collected on food
questionnaires and interviews from 1992 to 2000. The researchers followed up
with the participants an average of 16 years later. Study participants were drawn
from United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway,
Spain, and Sweden.
Findings from the
study tend to corroborate earlier publication by Harvard-based researchers in
the journal, Circulation. In the Harvard report, it was reprted that people who
drink two or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day – whether it’s a soda, a sports
drink, or any other sweet beverage – have 31 per cent higher risk of premature
death from cardiovascular disease than others who do not.
American Heart
Association reports that sweetened drinks are the biggest source of added sugar
in Americans’ diets. Sources say the nutritional habit is the trend in many
countries comprising Nigeria with the likelihood of higher rate of such
consumption in tropical areas where dehydration rate is high.
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