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Obesity studies point to sugary drinks as culprit
Source: Agencies |
September 23, 2012, Sunday
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NEW research powerfully strengthens the case against soda and other sugary drinks as culprits in the obesity epidemic.
A huge, decades-long study involving more than 33,000 Americans has yielded the first clear proof that drinking sugary beverages interacts with genes that affect weight, amplifying a person's risk for obesity beyond what it would be from heredity alone.
This means such drinks are especially harmful to people with genes that predispose them to weight gain. Most people have at least some of these genes.
In addition, two other major experiments have found that giving children and teens calorie-free alternatives to the sugary drinks they usually consume leads to less weight gain.
Collectively, the results strongly suggest that sugary drinks cause people to gain weight, independent of other unhealthy behavior such as overeating and getting too little exercise, experts say.
The findings may mean more cities in the United States will follow the lead of New York City, which just adopted a ban on large sugary drinks over protests from the soda industry and people who objected to what they saw as government intrusion on personal choices.
The studies were presented on Friday at an obesity conference in Texas and were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Sugary drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet, and they are increasingly blamed for the fact that a third of US children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight. Consumption of sugary drinks and obesity rates have risen in tandem.
But until now, high-quality experiments have not conclusively shown that reducing sugary beverages would lower weight or body fat, said David Allison, a biostatistician who has done beverage research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He said the new studies on children changed his mind and convinced him that limiting sweet drinks can make a difference.
In one study, researchers randomly assigned 224 overweight or obese teen students in the Boston area to receive shipments every two weeks of either the sugary drinks they usually consumed or sugar-free alternatives, including bottled water. No efforts were made to change the youngsters' exercise habits or give nutrition advice.
After one year, the sugar-free group weighed more than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) less on average than those who kept drinking sugary beverages.
A huge, decades-long study involving more than 33,000 Americans has yielded the first clear proof that drinking sugary beverages interacts with genes that affect weight, amplifying a person's risk for obesity beyond what it would be from heredity alone.
This means such drinks are especially harmful to people with genes that predispose them to weight gain. Most people have at least some of these genes.
In addition, two other major experiments have found that giving children and teens calorie-free alternatives to the sugary drinks they usually consume leads to less weight gain.
Collectively, the results strongly suggest that sugary drinks cause people to gain weight, independent of other unhealthy behavior such as overeating and getting too little exercise, experts say.
The findings may mean more cities in the United States will follow the lead of New York City, which just adopted a ban on large sugary drinks over protests from the soda industry and people who objected to what they saw as government intrusion on personal choices.
The studies were presented on Friday at an obesity conference in Texas and were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Sugary drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet, and they are increasingly blamed for the fact that a third of US children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight. Consumption of sugary drinks and obesity rates have risen in tandem.
But until now, high-quality experiments have not conclusively shown that reducing sugary beverages would lower weight or body fat, said David Allison, a biostatistician who has done beverage research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He said the new studies on children changed his mind and convinced him that limiting sweet drinks can make a difference.
In one study, researchers randomly assigned 224 overweight or obese teen students in the Boston area to receive shipments every two weeks of either the sugary drinks they usually consumed or sugar-free alternatives, including bottled water. No efforts were made to change the youngsters' exercise habits or give nutrition advice.
After one year, the sugar-free group weighed more than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) less on average than those who kept drinking sugary beverages.
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