Swap soft drinks for water to reduce diabetes risk

Swapping sugary soft drinks for water or unsweetened tea and coffee can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by up to a quarter, a new study has claimed.

The study indicates that for each 5 per cent increase of a person's total energy intake provided by sweet drinks including soft drinks, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes may increase by 18 per cent.

However, the study also estimates that replacing the daily consumption of one serving of a sugary drink with either water or unsweetened tea or coffee can lower the risk of developing diabetes by between 14 per cent and 25 per cent.

The research by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, included more than 25,000 men and women aged 40-79 years living in Norfolk, UK.

Participants recorded everything that they ate and drank for 7 consecutive days covering weekdays and weekend days, with particular attention to type, amount and frequency of consumption, and whether sugar was added.

During approximately 11 years of follow-up, 847 study participants were diagnosed with new-onset type 2 diabetes.

Researchers found that there was an approximately 22 per cent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes per extra serving per day habitually of each of soft drinks, sweetened milk beverages and artificially sweetened beverages (ASB) consumed, but that consumption of fruit juice and sweetened tea or coffee was not related to diabetes.

After further accounting for body mass index and waist girth as markers of obesity, there remained a higher risk of diabetes associated with consumption of both soft drinks and sweetened milk drinks, but the link with ASB consumption no longer remained, likely explained by the greater consumption of ASB by those who were already overweight or obese.

The authors also found that if study participants had replaced a serving of soft drinks with a serving of water or unsweetened tea or coffee, the risk of diabetes could have been cut by 14 per cent; and by replacing a serving of sweetened milk beverage with water or unsweetened tea or coffee, that reduction could have been 20-25 per cent.

However, consuming ASB instead of any sugar-sweetened drink was not associated with a statistically significant reduction in type 2 diabetes, when accounting for baseline obesity and total energy intake.

Finally, they found that each 5 per cent of higher intake of energy (as a proportion of total daily energy intake) from total sweet beverages (soft drinks, sweetened tea or coffee, sweetened milk beverages, fruit juice) was associated with a 18 per cent higher risk of diabetes.

The research was published in the journal Diabetologia.