The Non-Alcoholic Drink You Need to Avoid, According to Study

Worldwide health data indicate that liver-related complications and cancers are major factors in both illness and death rates.

A groundbreaking investigation led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an integral part of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, explored the link between drinking sugar-laden or artificially sweetened beverages and the incidence of liver cancer and related fatalities.

The findings of this research were made public in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Longgang Zhao, Ph.D., of Brigham’s Channing Division of Network Medicine, shed light on the novelty of the study, noting, “To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and chronic liver disease mortality.”

Zhao works in close association with the study’s lead contributor, Xuehong Zhang, MBBS, ScD, also from the Channing Division. Zhao elaborated, “Our findings, if confirmed, may pave the way to a public health strategy to reduce risk of liver disease based on data from a large and geographically diverse cohort.”

The research involved nearly 100,000 postmenopausal women, all participants in the expansive Women’s Health Initiative study. These women disclosed their habitual drinking patterns related to sodas and fruit-flavored beverages, not including pure fruit juices.

Three years later, they updated their consumption data, this time focusing on beverages that contained artificial sweeteners. The monitoring phase for this study stretched over two decades, during which researchers examined occurrences of liver cancer and liver-related deaths, such as fibrosis, cirrhosis, or chronic hepatitis.

These findings were verified against medical records or the National Death Index.

Among the 98,786 postmenopausal women surveyed, those who consumed one or more sugar-sweetened drinks daily (making up 6.8% of the total sample) encountered an elevated risk: an 85% increase for liver cancer and a 68% increase for liver disease-related deaths, compared to those who drank such beverages less than three times a month.

It’s important to note, however, that the study is observational in nature and focused solely on women. The data was self-reported, which limits the ability to definitively prove causality.

For a full understanding of this risk factor and to explore why sugar-sweetened drinks appear to elevate the risk of liver complications and cancer, additional research is crucial.

Future studies will need to cover a wide range of focus areas, including genetic studies, experimental research, and thorough examinations of -omics data.

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