Sugary drink deaths come to no surprise since one 20-ounce soda contains one to six tablespoons of sugar. Sugary drink deaths or “liquid candy” deaths puts the United States in third place among 35 nations. Mexico leads the number of highest sugary drink deaths while Japan has the fewest sugary drink deaths according to a March 19, 2013, USA Today report.
“Overall, 1 in 100 deaths of obese people globally can be blamed on too many sweetened beverages, according to a study presented at an American Heart Association scientific conference in New Orleans.”
But how much is “too many?”
The typical 20-ounce soda has up to 240 calories, a 64-ounce fountain cola drink up to 700 calories. The American Heart Association recommends that adults should not consume more than 450 calories from sugar-sweetened beverages per week.
In addition to consuming too many calories, sugary drinks contribute to deaths because “People who drink this ‘liquid candy’ do not feel as full as if they had eaten the same calories from solid food and do not compensate by eating less.”
Tuesday’s study presented at the American Heart Association scientific conference in New Orleans showed that 180,000 deaths worldwide are due to sugary drinks. In the United States, 25,000 adult deaths are linked to sugary drinks.
Sugary drinks do not only include soda but also other sugar-sweetened soft drinks, fruit juices, or sport beverages.
The 180,000 global sugary drink deaths reported consisted of 132,000 deaths from diabetes, 44,000 from cardiovascular disease, and 6,000 from cancer.
One of the co-authors of the sugary drink deaths study, Gitanjali Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, said in an interview that,
"Because we were focused on deaths due to chronic diseases, our study focused on adults. Future research should assess the amount of sugary beverage consumption in children across the world and how this affects their current and future health.”
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