Sugar-Sweetened Soft Drinks, Obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes
- Author Affiliation: Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- diabetes mellitus
- obesity
- soft drinks
Sugar-sweetened soft drinks contribute 7.1% of total energy intake and represent the largest single food source of calories in the US diet.1 Coincidentally or not, the rise of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the United States parallels the increase in sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption.2 Several studies have found an association between sugar-sweetened beverages and incidence of obesity in children.3-4 In one study, the odds ratio of becoming obese increased 1.6 times for each additional sugar-sweetened drink consumed every day.3 Increased diet soda consumption was negatively associated with childhood obesity.
The article by Schulze and colleagues5 in this issue of JAMA represents another link in the chain of evidence. This study provides additional evidence that excess calories from sugar-sweetened soft drinks are responsible for the increasing prevalence of obesity among adults and also implicates sugar-sweetened soft drinks as a cause of type 2 …
