Sugary Soft Drinks Raise Risk of Diabetes -Study

[RedEarth]

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. rates of diabetes have soared alongside soft drink consumption, and scientists said on Tuesday the spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels triggered by the sugary drinks may be at least partly to blame.

Adult-onset diabetes, which afflicts 17 million Americans, is caused by the body either becoming resistant to insulin or not producing enough of it.


"Rates of diabetes are skyrocketing. At the same time, over the last couple of decades, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has increased," said Meir Stampfer of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, one of the authors of a study examining the link.


Between 1977 and 1997, U.S. soft drink consumption rose 61 percent among adults and more than doubled among children, the study said. The increased incidence of diabetes has also paralleled the growing obesity epidemic, the report said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&ncid=751&e=1&u=/nm/20040824/hl_nm/health_diabetes_dc

[lanparty]

1. Who new ????

The number one cure for diabetes is water!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Massacure]

13. Or milk, or juice

Or I should actuallay say juice that is not artificially sweetened.

[hatrack]

16. Have you tried to find non-HFCS juice at the grocery store?

Not easy! About the only bottled juice I can ever find at c-stores and the like that doesn't have it is orange juice.

[KittyWampus]

22. Apple & Eve Is A Mainstream Brand W/No Added Sweetners

and they have delicious blends.

[takumi]

2. DUUUUHHHH!

Why do we need Harvard to tell us what is already clear (obvious)????????

[Javaman]

3. No Duh....

It's just so amazing how some of these "studies" just continue to point out the obvious.

[UrbScotty]

4. You cannot be serious!

Really? I thought gay marriages raised the risk of diabetes!

[Hegemony Cricket]

6. Actually it's...

...Laura Bush speaking that raises the risk of diabetes.

Gay Marriage just makes the Jesus lower his Holy Defense Shielding over Amuricah.

[KurtNYC]

5. But there is no sugar in most soft drinks now

It is HFCS which is worse. Sugar is actually easier for the body to deal with than HFCS. Corn is what is used to fatten cattle -- hits people the same way.

Avoid all liquid calories.

[LifeDuringWartime]

18. from what ive seen

most contain both high fructose corn syrup and sugar (or saccharin/aspartame - blehh!)

i try to avoid soda..

[Jane Austin]

7. Dog bites man.

Rain deemed wet.

[hatrack]

9. Rocks hard, night dark, scientists declare

And in a stunning discovery, experts disclosed today that fire is hot.

Seriously, though, HFCS is just about the worst single thing you can eat or drink. There's a great book on the subject called "Fatland: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World" - can't remember the author, but it's well worth reading.

[Malva Zebrina]

8. Eric Schlosser in his book "Fast Food Nation" points this out

He compares the average consumption of soft drinks :"in 1978 , the typical teenage boy in the United States drank about seven ounces of soda every day;today he drinks nearly three times that amount, deriving 9 percent of his daily caloric intake from soft drinks." (p54}

I found this book excellent reading.

[amazona]

10. help me with this ?

It's unclear to me whether or not it is safe to drink soft drinks if you are thin. I drink less than one a day when at home but when traveling sometimes there is no safe option except for soft drinks or beer -- it is not unknown for bottled water to be tap water re-sealed in the bottle for a little more profit.

Also, the article says it is because you don't get full when drinking soft drinks. Well, I do get full when drinking a soft drink (or a beer, for that matter).

So if I have this reaction, does this mean I'm OK? Or would you read the article to mean that no one can safely drink soft drinks? I mean, if they think one soft drink a day is high consumption, they are basically saying the product is unsafe at any level of consumption, right?

[FlaGranny]

19. Obesity is not always a cause of diabetes.

Some skinny people are diabetic, probably due to genetics. No one can be 100% certain unless they have a glucose tolerance test. A friend of mine is in his 40s, slim and fit, but has type 2 diabetes.

[amazona]

25. OK, thanks

This is somewhat upsetting. I don't see how they can continue to sell a product which causes such harm at a normal rate of consumption. One can of soda a day is not an excessive amount -- it is a standard serving.

[RedEarth]

11. I agree with the "duh", "you can't be serious" posts, but how many schools

have loaded up their buildings with candy and pop machines since they don't have enough money to operate their districts as they should. There always seems to be enough money for a tax cut or to build another bomb, but there never seems to be enough for education. It's tragic that some people think it's better to pay for some the cost of education through selling candy and pop, instead of realizing in the long run it will cost each of us more.

[FighttheFuture]

12. Fucking Duh!! What' the next article going to be... "Earth revolves

around the Sun"?

Talk about finding usless crap stories to fill the gap of political coverage they don't provide!!

[AP]

15. You really knew that drinking soft drinks correlated to getting diabetes?

I suspect lots of people felt there'd be a genetic component that would be more determinative. I also bet a lot of parents probably think that there wouldn't be soft drink machines in their kids' schools iff there were such a direct correlation.

[FighttheFuture]

17. I knew that excessive sugar intake contributed to diabetes and..

soft drinks, in conjuction with inactivity, are a large part of the problem. this has been known for years. Yet, we see snack machines and infomercials shown right in schools now (they were not there before the mid-80's) for the crap that leads to health issues.

I also knew from simple observation over the last couple of decades that soft drink consumption is way, way up! I understand that people like to find a "genetic" components but the sad fact is it's usually environmental coupled with genetic posibility, not certainty.

It's nice to have another "study" of something that has been known, and stuidied for years. However, if Bush ahs another 4 years, you will not even see these studies becasue Coke + Pepsi would not want it. Hence, my complaint that this is simply filler for what they are not reporting.

[AP]

20. I suspect people didn't know what an effective delivery mechanism a soft

drink is for putting sugar in your blood, and I suspect a lot of people didn't realize just how much sugar there was in a soft drink.

[RedEarth]

21. Thanks AP...Schools... that's the primary reason I posted this article

School districts through-out the country are filling their buildings with candy and pop machines due to the fact they are strapped for cash. If parents truly knew the long-term cost of having pop machines in schools, I would imagine many of them would demand they be taken out.

[AP]

24. No problem. I worry that the "personal responsibility" ...

... to take care of "obvious" risks chat misses an important point.

And that's that if this were so bad, then why isn't the government doing something to protect its citizens -- or, at least, why are the school districts allowing it in the cafeteria?

[HuckleB]

28. Yeah, it's mind boggling.

I was given fruit as dessert for lunch, with fruit and veggies and other whole foods as snacks. We were generally allowed something like two cookies or two scoops of ice cream as dessert after dinner, so we still got the good stuff, but in moderation. I can't imagine what goes through the minds of parents today sometimes. Heck, we were active, too. We walked to school, played outside for hours every day, etc... which is not in line with much of the population of children today.

[HuckleB]

27. Wow! I agree with AP.

Supposed "obvious" connections don't always turn out to be so obvious once research does its work. This is valuable news for a society still encumbered by SuperSizes and Big Gulps.

However, we can't ignore that genetics remains one of many risk factors.

[AP]

29. If there's a direct correlation between increased soft drink...

...consumption and increased diabetes (and there's a link), then either genetics isn't that big of a factor, or everyone is genetically predisposed. No?

[HuckleB]

31. No, it's still only one factor among many.

Diabetes has always existed. As with most diseases, it's a combination of genetics and environment. In the past, with a more balanced diet, only those most predisposed to it genetically likely found themselves facing it. With a less balanced diet, some of those less predisposed to it also find themselves facing it. However, there remain a great many folks who drink soft drinks all the live long day and never come down with diabetes. They've got something in their genes that keeps things in balance even with a poor diet.

[lojasmo]

14. Oxygen most important component of air

for cellular metabolism.

[lanparty]

23. Bill Maher was trying to point this out on his show the other night ...

... the panel quickly turned on him. Of course, I think it's how he said it.

But YES, high-fructose corn sugar is a major contributor to heart-disease and diabetes.

I think we're finding that the preponderence of highly refined sources of carbohydrates is a really bad thing. The food manufacturers add these to there products because they know damn well it will turn those "greedy genes" on that prompt people to overeat.

No one EVER over-consumes carrots or whole grain rice. It's only the high-concentrated forms of energy that our anscestors would take advantage of to stave off death during lean times.

The problem is exasperated by the fact that production of these highly refined energy sources are subisdised. This makes unhealhty foods CHEAPER than healthy foods.

So as it's beed said before. Our poor people are FAT. The reason is simple. Unhealthy foods are CHEAPER!!!

[HuckleB]

26. 64 ounce BIG GULPS! 2-Liters bottles becoming 3-Liter bottles!

There's nothing wrong with an 8-ounce bottle of Coke or a 12-ounce can of Canada Dry now and then.

It's the quantity, stupid!

:)

[amazona]

30. not so...the article clearly states 1 can a day correlates to diabetes

They are talking about women drinking one can a day. The low consumption group drinks less than one can a week!

Who in heck drinks only one can a week?

The study seems to be saying that there is not really any safe level of consumption at all. Once you open a can, you have to finish it in an hour or two, or it is spoiled. It does not keep a week!

Edited to add relevant quote:

"Women who drank one or more soft drinks per day gained, on average, 17 pounds (7.7 kg) over the eight-year period, while those who drank one soft drink per week or less gained 6 pounds (2.7 kg) on average" --

[HuckleB]

32. Actually, you just pointed out the problems with the study.

It's not likely that the increase is just caused by soft drinks, but more likely via a change in diet that includes many items. It's all in what one eats, drinks and trades off. If I drink a can of coke a day, am I any more susceptible to it than someone who eats a couple of cookies a day? No. If I drink one can of coke a week, am I more susceptible than someone who eats a piece of sugar cake once a week? No.

There are too many confounding factors not included in the statement you quoted for it to be of great meaning.

[happynewyear]

33. relative has this diabetes now - age 44

And this relative used to drink quarts of sugared sodas a day. Then, all of a sudden ends up in the ER in a diabetic coma - almost drops dead. Blood sugar was 600!

I don't know how anyone could be walking about with blood sugar this high. Wouldn't there be some sort of "symptom"?

:dem: :kick: