That Sugary Drink May be Killing You

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WELLNESS-On June 29^th of this year, a study published in the journal Circulation discovered that 184,000 deaths occur worldwide each year attributed to the consumption of sugary drinks.  The study went on to say that the while the US doesn’t lead in sugar related deaths, there are an estimated 25,000 per year.  Of the 184,000 deaths, 133,00 deaths occur from diabetes, 45,000 from cardiovascular disease, and 6,450 from cancer.  

Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian was quoted in the study as saying “Many countries in the world have a significant number of deaths occurring from a single dietary factor, sugar-sweetened beverages. It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet.” 

In 2010 there was a similar study done proving the dangers of sugar-sweetened drinks and their effects on heart disease, cancers, and diabetes.  In this more recent study the focus was specifically on disease caused by sugary drinks and how often it leads to death.  The Unites States was the 4^th most common country to lose people to sugar related deaths behind Mexico, South Africa, and Morocco.  

“There’s definitely been progress, but there’s still a huge amount of soda consumption in the US and globally,” Mozaffarian said. There are economic implications as well with a younger segment of the population consuming greater amounts of sugary drinks compared to the older people of the same culture.  This could lead to more deaths of younger working aged people causing a dip in the economy trending in unison with the loss of young life.  

The other economic discovery in this study is that there is also a direct link between socio-economic class and sugar drink consumption.  People of lesser means have a greater chance of consuming sugar drinks over a healthy green vegetable juice for example.  In addition to this, there is also the addiction element. Studies show that sugar lights up the same parts of the brain lit up with hard drug use.  With much less education around the dangers of sugar, lesse r-educated people are much more likely to consume great amounts of sugary drinks not realizing the dangers and the level of addiction.  

As more of these studies are released and more health care providers are made aware of the great dangers of sugar, we will be more likely to stave off the abuse of sugar in the diets of Americans and people all over the world. 

 

 (Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist in LA, TV host of Wellness for Realists and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. Christian can be reached at 323.935.3420. twitter: @CristianoWFR)

-cw 

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 57

Pub: Jul 14, 2015