Daily sugary beverages may harm women's livers
Research we're watching
- Reviewed by Toni Golen, MD, Editor in Chief, Harvard Women's Health Watch; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing; Contributor
Regularly drinking sugar-sweetened sodas and fruit drinks may raise older women's risks of developing liver cancer or dying from chronic liver disease, a new analysis suggests.
The Harvard-led study, published online Aug. 8, 2023, by JAMA, evaluated intake of sugar-sweetened drinks among nearly 99,000 women and consumption of artificially sweetened drinks among 65,000 of those same women. Over all, nearly 7% of all participants — who were 50 to 79 — reported drinking at least one sugar-sweetened beverage daily, and 13% of the smaller subset drank one or more artificially sweetened drinks. At a follow-up check after a period averaging 21 years, the researchers found that women who drank at least one sugary beverage each day at the start of the study had an 85% higher risk of developing liver cancer and a 68% higher risk of dying from chronic liver disease (including liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, and chronic hepatitis) than participants who drank three or fewer of these drinks each month. Those risks didn't hold for drinking artificially sweetened drinks, however.
The study was observational, meaning the researchers couldn't prove that drinking sugar-laden beverages caused liver problems — only that an association exists. But drinking fewer sugary beverages may help protect your liver, study authors said.
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About the Author
Maureen Salamon, Executive Editor, Harvard Women's Health Watch
About the Reviewer
Toni Golen, MD, Editor in Chief, Harvard Women's Health Watch; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing; Contributor
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