Research: Sugar is especially unhealthy in soft drinks

Sugar appears to be particularly harmful to health if obtained from soft drinks. However, not all indulgence is dangerous, rather the opposite.

This is what 67,000 Swedes have understood research. It looked at the association of added sugar consumed in various forms with diseases of the circulatory system.

The more sugary soft drinks the subjects drank, the more likely they were to have a stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, or abdominal aortic bulging.

On the other hand, those who ate the least pastries, ice cream, chocolate and sweets had the highest risk for all the monitored diseases.

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An everyday bun does not necessarily mean that the diet and lifestyle are generally bad.

In research it was not clear what is the reason for the surprising result. In their report, the group considered that the explanation may be related to the Swedish coffee-drinking culture.

A daily bun together with colleagues, friends or relatives does not necessarily mean that the diet and lifestyle are generally bad. Rather, it can tell about a good social life.

Consumers of lemonades, on the other hand, according to research, often have an unhealthy diet.

Since the calories consumed in drinks do not make you full, drinking soft drinks also does not cause a person to reduce other energy intake. It can easily make you fat, and obesity is a known risk factor for circulatory diseases.

Circulatory organs diseases are the most common cause of death throughout Europe, including in Finland. A high intake of added sugar has been proven to be linked to obesity, high blood pressure and disturbed blood fat levels.

The participants of the study were Swedes aged 45–83 who answered a questionnaire about their diet and lifestyle on two occasions, in 1997 and 2009.

From the register data, it was monitored which of them had an ischemic cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction, heart failure, aortic valve stenosis, atrial fibrillation or abdominal aortic bulging by 2019.