Sugary Drinks Linked to 184,000 Deaths a Year, Study Reveals

The consumption of sugary beverages such as soda, sweetened iced teas, and energy drinks may lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year globally, a new study says.

Researchers from Tufts University published their findings in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

They defined sugar-sweetened beverages as drinks sweetened with sugar containing 50 kcal per 8 oz serving such as in fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, sweetened iced teas, or homemade sugary Fresca drinks. 100 percent fruit juices were exempted from the study.

Researchers looked at 62 dietary surveys on the effect of sugar on health problems such as BMI, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers from more than 50 countries plus data on the availability of sugar from over 185 countries.

The researches estimated that sugary drinks may have caused 133,000 diabetes deaths, 45,000 cardiovascular disease deaths, and 6,450 cancer deaths in 2010.

"Many countries in the world have a significant number of deaths occurring from a single dietary factor, sugar-sweetened beverages," said Dr Darius Mozaffarian, senior author and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University.

"It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet," he said via Eureka Alert.

According to the press release, Mexico had the highest estimated sugary beverage-related death rates at an 405 deaths per million adults, followed by the United States at 125 deaths per million adults.

Among the 20 countries with the highest deaths, eight were in Latin America and the Carribean, indicating the high consumption trend in that part of the world, said Gitanjali Singh, lead author and research assistant professor at the Friedman School.

Singh adds that the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages among the youth is critical as it is in the higher percentage than in older adults and that it could likely affect the future.

"If these young people continue to consume high levels as they age, the effects of high consumption will be compounded by the effects of aging, leading to even higher death and disability rates from heart disease and diabetes than we are seeing now," Singh said.

Other people may be saying that the study is flawed and that soda isn't necessarily the sole cause of all the deaths.

"You could say that this isn't perfect, but I think that if the beverage industry says we're not sure that soda causes obesity, they're just putting their heads in the sand," Mozaffarian said via NBC News.

"And we're not including all the other health impacts, like back pain, gallstones, joint disease, that are caused by obesity."