Sugary drinks were linked to 180,000 deaths, according to new research.
The obesity-related deaths were presented in data from the American Heart Association Tuesday. The sugar content of a 20-ounce soda is high at 15 to 18 teaspoons and 240 calories or more. Drinks come in massive portions these days, with a 64-ounce drink packing as much as 700 calories.
Data was analyzed by researchers from the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases Study. The researchers recorded how much sugary drinks were consumed by people, sorted by age and gender. Obesity rates were compared to the various amounts of consumption provided. The effects that obesity had on diabetes, heart disease and some cancers were then calculated. That provided the resulting number of deaths that were related to excess consumption of sugary drinks.
Data from the study showed that in the United States, 25,000 deaths were linked to sugary drinks. Two out of three adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese. It's estimated that the nation's cost to treat obesity related illnesses is over $190 billion a year. Globally, 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 heart disease deaths and 6,000 deaths were related to beverages that had high amounts of sugar.
"Because we were focused on deaths due to chronic diseases, our study focused on adults. Future research should assess the amount of sugary beverage consumption in children across the world and how this affects their current and future health," said Dr. Gitanjali Singh, postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Singh is also one of the co-authors of the study.
Latin America and the Caribbean had the most diabetes deaths, with a total of 38,000. The data showed a higher intake of sugary drinks and less-wealthy populations with lower incomes were connected to a higher consumption of sweetened beverages.
"Seventy-eight percent of these deaths due to over-consuming sugary drinks were in low and middle-income countries, rather than high-income countries," said the authors in a statement.
"A large number of deaths each year are caused by drinking sugary beverages. Our findings should push policy makers world-wide to make effective policies to reduce consumption of sugary beverages, such as taxation, mass-media campaigns, and reducing availability of these drinks," said Singh.
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to ban sugary drinks, which caught a lot of attention, but the proposal was denied by the Supreme Court. This latest research shows how over-consumption of sugary drinks affects the health of people worldwide.
