NEW DIABETES HEALTH WARNING
JUST two soft drinks a day doubles the risk of diabetes, research shows.
The health danger lurks in two 200ml daily servings and is the same regardless of whether it contains sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Obesity experts said the findings reinforced the message that harmless-looking sweetened drinks endanger health.
A study found guzzling fizzy drinks increased the chances of obesity driven Type 2 and also
latent autoimmune diabetes in adults – known as LADA or Type 1.5 diabetes.
Swedish researchers think those with lesser-known Type 1.5 have a degree of insulin resistance like Type 2 sufferers suggesting soft drinks increase risk by influencing insulin sensitivity.
Lead researcher Josefin Edwall Lofvenborg said: “High intake of sweetened beverages was associated with increased risk of LADA. The observed relationship resembled that with Type 2, suggesting common pathways possibly involving insulin resistance.”
The research, published today in the European Journal of Endocrinology, comes weeks after experts told how Britain’s diabetes epidemic is so severe it could bankrupt the NHS.
The disease is now such a drain on resources that experts fear it is only a matter of time before hospitals are forced to pick and choose what to treat.
Diabetes costs more than £10billion a year – 10 per cent of the NHS budget – with one person diagnosed every two minutes in the UK.
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “The research comes from a highly respected institute who would not make such a claim lightheartedly. It is yet another warning that sweetened drinks, though appearing harmless on the surface, can mess things up inside you. Why should you want to take the risk when a glass of water will slake your thirst and not put your health in jeopardy?”
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studied the eating and drinking habits of 2,874 people – a mixture with LADA, others with Type 2 and a large number of healthy people – to measure the impact of sugary or artificially sweetened drinks.
They evaluated the number of soft drinks each group consumed up to a year before their diagnosis, as well as measuring their levels of insulin resistance, cell function and autoimmune response.
Results showed drinking more than two 200ml soft drinks a day doubled the risk of LADA and more than doubled the risk of Type 2.
Christine Williams, professor of human nutrition at Reading University, said: “A most interesting finding was the higher risk was the same for both sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages, suggesting that risk of diabetes was not directly related to higher calorie intake, or adverse metabolic effects of sugar [in the form of sucrose] from the sweetened drinks.”