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Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

bmj.com

71–80 of 109 posts

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#71

Soda is poison. It might sound dramatic, but I think we'll come to see it as similar to smoking or heavy alcohol drinking (assuming we aren't there already). I've been trying to quit for years. I'll likely get mocked, but it is quite addictive once you're hooked (particularly as it makes you tired, which makes you want to drink more to feel "normal"). I'm trying to move to sweetened Iced Tea (40% less sugar) and even…

Soda is addictive. At my worst, I drank 6 Cokes a day. I've been a heavy Coke drinker for a long, long time. I have a psychological dependence on it, so when I'm particularly stressed, I need to guzzle it down. I'm down to about 1-2 Cokes every week. I will crumble and drink a 20 oz Coke about once a week and drink water or ice tea (either unsweetened or low-sweetened (90 calories)). The irony is that an equivalent g…

Yeah but in milk, calories are much more than just sugar. It's good protein and fats (good fats?). So sodas can't compete.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#72
For those who think this study says "all clear" for artificial sweeteners:

> Null results observed in this study regarding the association between artificially sweetened beverages and the risk of cancer does not support the hypothesis of an adverse effect of artificial sweeteners. However, caution is needed in interpreting this finding because statistical power might have been limited to investigate this association owing to the relatively low level of consumption in this population study (median=6.9 mL/d). Some experimental studies suggest a possible carcinogenic effect for some artificial sweeteners, but this point is debated.767778 In order to evaluate accurately these associations in humans, it will be necessary to distinguish the different types of artificial sweeteners (eg, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfam K), and also to take into account all dietary sources for these additives (eg, yogurts, candies) and not only artificially sweetened beverages.

It should be pointed out that the label "artificial sweetener" encompasses a wide variety of chemical entities, each of which can be expected to have its own risk profile.

For comparison:

> Median daily consumption of sugary drinks was greater in men than in women (90.3 mL v 74.6 mL, respectively; PAnd later (although the numbers seem to have been reversed):

> However, the median consumption of sugary drinks was lower in menopausal (88.2 mL/d) compared with premenopausal (43.2 mL/d) women.

So, the median volume of consumption was about 10:1 favoring sugar in this study.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#73

Does anyone know the answer to this question? If I am going to drink a soda, which soda am I better off drinking? Coke or Diet Coke/Coke Zero? I know that neither option is good for me, but which would be comparatively better or is the science still out on that?

If you just rely on the news media, you'd be convinced that drinking anything but purified water would kill you. Even though there's a lot of news stories about diet sodas, doesn't mean there's solid evidence they're bad for you [1]. A lot of journals won't even publish articles that have negative results (e.g. do not show a link), so you can't rely on the number of studies backing one way or another.

So, if diet soda isn't bad for you, is a surgary drink worse. Since the difference between the two is sugar vs. artificial sweetener, the question can be changed to "is sugar worse for you than artificial sweeteners". Again you probably won't find any definitive evidence one way or another. The actual settled science would just boil down to whether you're consuming too many calories.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20170505/diet-soda-health-ri...

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#74
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not enough data in this study to conclude either way about artificial sweeteners

It’s literally in the conclusion section.

It wasn’t though. They state they didn’t find an association but take it with a grain of salt due to low statistical power. Therefore, we shouldn’t really say either way.

>The consumption of artificially sweetened beverages was not associated with a risk of cancer, but statistical power was probably limited owing to a relatively low consumption in this sample.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#75

Soda is poison. It might sound dramatic, but I think we'll come to see it as similar to smoking or heavy alcohol drinking (assuming we aren't there already). I've been trying to quit for years. I'll likely get mocked, but it is quite addictive once you're hooked (particularly as it makes you tired, which makes you want to drink more to feel "normal"). I'm trying to move to sweetened Iced Tea (40% less sugar) and even…

I quit caffeine. I can say it took about two weeks of hell, and then everything was better after. Had been trying for years before that.

You may or may not have tried cold turkey, but it’s worth a shot if your current taper doesn’t produce results. You could always stock up on oranges, and lemon slices for the water. Something to give you some sugar in food + flavour to the water. It’s hard to overdose on oranges, and it gets the sugar into a solid rather than a liquid form.

YMMV, but I’ve often found cold turkey a relief whenever I had long struggles with something before trying it. I’d marka piece of paper, and relax other responsibilities and focus on stuff like sleep and exercise etc during the period to cushion the blow.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#76
post #28

I don't understand, maybe due to a language difference. Does 100% fruit juice mean the store bought 100% fruit guice (the premium brands?) or literally freshly squeezed orange, immediately drank? Wouldn't also eating fresh fruits be linked?

It doesn't matter if you squeeze it fresh or make it from concentrate.

In either case, you're drinking lots fructose that's been separated from fiber. Without fiber, there is nothing to slow digestion of that fructose, so you end up with a massive glycemic impact. Alongside that, fructose directly causes leptin resistance, resulting in overeating.

Also beware of eating too much fruit all at once. Fiber can only do so much, and a stomach full of oranges will also lead to the same result.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#77
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually tried this? What did you find? Because I actually conducted something very similar to this experiment with someone else once, because they said the same thing as you just did and I was skeptical. We left the one we squeezed in the fridge for several days (I want to say almost a week, but it's been a few years so I don't remember exactly) and it was fine when we drank it after. We did cover the whole…

Not intentionally, but generally yes, just by forgetting a glass. However, it also has not happened recently, I don't drink any kind of bought juice any more. I squeeze it myself.

Well next time you squeeze one, try this yourself intentionally. Fill a glass with orange juice, put some plastic wrap tightly over it, leave it in the fridge for a week (or however long you think is the average selling period for your local store), then try drinking it and seeing if it tastes rancid like you expect. Then ask yourself honestly if what you observed is significant support for the notion that the store-bought ones have preservatives or something.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soda is addictive. At my worst, I drank 6 Cokes a day. I've been a heavy Coke drinker for a long, long time. I have a psychological dependence on it, so when I'm particularly stressed, I need to guzzle it down. I'm down to about 1-2 Cokes every week. I will crumble and drink a 20 oz Coke about once a week and drink water or ice tea (either unsweetened or low-sweetened (90 calories)). The irony is that an equivalent g…

Honestly you need more than just one or two data points to conclude a substance is addictive. For pretty much anything you could always find a small number of people who have trouble avoiding it.

If you want to ignore the science, you can argue that soda isn't addictive. We know that sugar and caffeine each in isolation are addictive. We also know that the combination is addictive. But all the studies could also be "data points." It really comes down to how many data points you feel qualifies for legitimacy/where the threshold is.

For example

Caffeine:

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/104/4/1144/4557113 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18762... https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/262054?jou...

Sugar:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976340... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026156140... https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/139/3/623/4670401

Both together:

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cdar/2011/0000000... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-015-0634-5

Soda, specifically, hasn't got many studies that directly look at its addictiveness. But its ingredients (namely sugar and caffeine) have tons of studies and meta-studies that looked into them vis-a-vis food addiction, and most concluded there was some addictive/habit-forming properties.

Re: Sugary drinks and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

#79
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study seems to very clearly indicate Diet Coke/Coke Zero is much healthier than Coke. There are tons of studies like this that concretely show how bad sugar is for you, while most studies show that artificial sweeteners have no (or minimal relative to sugar) adverse health effects.

There is plenty of evidence that artificial sweeteners spike your insulin in the same way that sugars do[1], leading to adverse effects. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3772345/

Are you sure that's what it says? It seems to talk a lot about psychological pavlovian responses, but I see this:

> Artificial sweeteners alone do not stimulate insulin or incretin release in vivo

> Unlike caloric sweeteners, artificial sweeteners do not augment insulin or incretin release in response to meals

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