Soft drinks, high-fructose corn syrup promote diabetes, says study

In addition, the sugar consumers had an 82% increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, since high blood sugar puts a burden on the pancreas to produce insulin. Men who drink these beverages would also be subject to the same risks.

• Women who drink non-diet soda or fruit punch every day gain weight quickly and face a sharply elevated risk of diabetes, according to a major study released yesterday.
• The study of more than 50,000 U.S. nurses found that those who drank just one serving of soda or fruit punch a day tended to gain much more weight than those who drank less than one a month, and had more than an 80 percent increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.
• The risk pertained to drinks sweetened with either sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.
• Although previous studies have linked such drinks to obesity and diabetes, the association has been the subject of intense debate as health activists have fought to ban soda vending machines from schools and the sugar industry has lobbied against dietary guidelines that discourage sugar consumption by children and adults.
• "The message is: Anyone who cares about their health or the health of their family would not consume these beverages," said Walter C. Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, who helped conduct the study.
• "Parents who care about their children's health should not keep them at home."
• Other experts agreed, saying the study represented a milestone in the debate over soft drink consumption, which has skyrocketed in the past 20 years with the rising obesity epidemic.
• "While it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that soda causes weight gain because it's high in calories, these findings are very significant.
• In the study, Willett and his colleagues analyzed data collected from Nurses' Health Study II, an ongoing project involving 91,249 women designed to examine an abundance of health issues by regularly questioning the women in depth over many years.