Sugar-sweetened drinks ‘a major cause of type 2 diabetes in the UK’

A new study has demonstrated the significant contribution that sugar-sweetened drinks make to rising rates of type 2 diabetes in the UK.

An international team of researchers, led by the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, aimed to determine whether habitual consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, artificially-sweetened drinks or fruit juice was associated with the incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Looking at the results of 17 observational studies, it was shown that habitual consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks was positively associated with incidence of type 2 diabetes, independently of obesity status.

According to results published in the British Medical Journal, these drinks may be responsible for causing nearly two million diabetes cases in the US and 80,000 in the UK over a ten-year period.

The association between artificially-sweetened drinks or fruit juice and type 2 diabetes was less evident, but there was also little evidence of these types of beverage being a beneficial healthy alternative.

Dr Fumiaki Imamura, lead author of the study at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: "These findings together indicate that substituting sugar sweetened drinks with artificially sweetened drinks or fruit juice is unlikely to be the best strategy in reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes."