Daily consumption of this drink may increase the risk of liver cancer in women, according to a study.
Women Who Drink Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Daily at Higher Risk of Liver Cancer and Chronic Liver Disease
A recent study conducted by Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts has found that women who consume sugar-sweetened drinks on a daily basis have a higher risk of developing liver cancer and chronic liver disease.
The study, which analyzed data from nearly 98,786 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years old, enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study from 1993 to 1998, revealed that those who consumed one or more sugar-sweetened beverages per day had a significantly higher incidence of liver cancer and death from chronic liver disease compared to those who consumed three or fewer servings per month.
During the study, the women self-reported their usual soft drinks and fruit drinks (excluding fruit juice), as well as their consumption of artificially sweetened drinks after three years. The researchers followed up on the cases over a median of 20.9 years, verifying the reported data through medical records or the National Death Index.
The results showed that the 6.8 percent of women who consumed one or more sugar-sweetened drinks daily had an 85 percent higher risk of liver cancer and a 68 percent higher risk of death from chronic liver disease compared to those who had fewer than three such drinks a month.
A soft drink can on a bed of sugar grains. (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
A First-of-its-Kind Study
The authors of the study highlighted that approximately 40 percent of liver cancer patients did not have common risk factors associated with the disease, such as chronic hepatitis B or C infection, type 2 diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, or obesity.
They emphasized the importance of identifying dietary risk factors for liver cancer and chronic liver disease mortality, as epidemiological studies on this topic are limited. The authors aimed to investigate whether sugar-sweetened or artificially sweetened drinks could be potential risk factors, considering that over 65 percent of U.S. adults consumed sugar-sweetened beverages daily between 2017 and 2018.
While previous studies had suggested a potential association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and liver cancer risk, this study is the first to report an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and chronic liver disease mortality.
“Our findings, if confirmed, may pave the way to a public health strategy to reduce the risk of liver disease based on data from a large and geographically diverse population,” said Longgang Zhao, the first author of the study from Brigham’s Channing Division of Network Medicine.
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