Tobacco companies hook kids on sugary drinks

 

UCSF :Tobacco conglomerates that used colors, flavors and marketing techniques to entice children as future smokers transferred these same strategies to sweetened beverages when they bought food and drinks companies starting in 1963, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.
The study, which draws from a cache of previously secret documents from the tobacco industry that is part of the UCSF Industry Documents Library tracked the acquisition and subsequent marketing campaigns of sweetened drink brands by two leading tobacco companies: R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. It found that as tobacco was facing increased scrutiny from health authorities, its executives transferred the same products and tactics to peddle soft drinks. The study was published in the March 2019 issue of BMJ.

Sugary drinks killing 'hundreds of thousands', study estimates

NHS: “Sugary drinks are killing 184,000 adults around the world every year, says study,” The Independent reports. This is the alarming claim of researchers who created a model of sugary drink-related deaths based on global consumption rates. They defined sugary drinks as any sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks, fruit drinks (not pure fruit juice), sweetened iced teas, sports or energy drinks, or homemade sugary drinks. The model used a large amount of data on the consumption of sugary drinks from national surveys, and on the effect of sugary drink consumption on body mass index (BMI) and risk of diabetes, and the knock-on effect of BMI on heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Replacing sugary drinks with water may reduce diabetes risk

NHS: "Swapping orange squash for a cup of tea cuts diabetes risk," The Daily Telegraph reports. This widely-reported news is based on a major UK study, involving around 25,000 adults, which looked at the association between drink choices and the risk of type 2 diabetes. It found that those who consumed more of their calories through sugary drinks, and those who drank more soft drinks or sweetened milk drinks, were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. The study has a number of strengths, including its large size and use of multiple approaches to identify people who developed diabetes. But its main limitation is that other factors may be contributing to the effect seen, even though the researchers did try to reduce this as much as possible.

Sweet Exceptions

Missouri University. US: When active kids partake in moderation, sugary drinks appear less bad than feared. The past thirty years has seen a spike in Americans’ consumption of sugary soft drinks, a trend that has been linked to poor diet, weight gain and obesity. Such unhappy outcomes have done little to slake our thirsts, however.

Sugary soft drinks linked to earlier periods in girls

NHS. UK: “Sugary drinks may cause menstruation to start earlier, study suggests,” reports The Guardian, reporting on a US study looking at the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in teenage girls. This study included over 5,000 girls. It first assessed them when they were aged 9-14 years, asking them whether they had started their periods and assessing their consumption of SSBs. The girls were followed up annually.

Research finds caffeine increases soft drink consumption

Deakin University Australia: Researchers from Deakin University's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN) have found that caffeine increases the consumption of soft drinks. In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers measured the influence caffeine had on the consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks. They found that people drinking caffeinated drinks consumed much more than those who drank the non-caffeinated equivalents.

Research finds caffeine increases soft drink consumption

Deakin University. Australia: Researchers from Deakin University's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN) have found that caffeine increases the consumption of soft drinks.
In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers measured the influence caffeine had on the consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks. They found that people drinking caffeinated drinks consumed much more than those who drank the non-caffeinated equivalents.