Avoid or reduce to a minimum. Replace with water, tea, or unsweetened coffee.
Three drinks/day for one week produce endothelial dysfunction; regular aerobic exercise partially offsets the damage.
View the study (RCT) →More than 340 ml/day: +53% risk of high triglycerides and +98% of low HDL (12.5 years).
View the study (cohort) →≥2 servings/day in adulthood: >2× risk of early-onset colorectal cancer; +16% risk for each additional serving.
View the study (cohort) →Young men in the top quartile: >2× the likelihood of low testosterone.
View the study (cohorts) →*⏱ 2 min read
Sugar-sweetened beverages include commonly consumed products such as soft drinks, sports and energy drinks, coffee, tea, and water with added sugars and some fruit juices; although consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has declined in recent decades, they remain one of the main contributors to sugar intake in many countries, and they pose a physiologically unique health risk because of converging factors that make them more dangerous than other sources of sugar.
Because they do not contain a food matrix that slows absorption, sugar-sweetened beverages are rapidly absorbed by the intestine and cause blood glucose spikes; in addition, many sugar-sweetened beverages exceed the maximum recommended daily intake of added sugar of 25 grams in a single serving and can be consumed faster than solid sources of sugar; these factors, the absence of a matrix and the high dose, make sugar-sweetened beverages especially problematic compared with other ultra-processed foods.
A single sugar-sweetened beverage induces acute endothelial dysfunction, and one study found that consuming three sugar-sweetened beverages a day for one week caused endothelial dysfunction and reduced flow-mediated dilation in participants who did not exercise, but participants who performed 45 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week during the same period did not experience impairment in endothelial function, which suggests that exercise partially offsets the harmful effects of regular liquid sugar consumption.
Data from the Framingham Heart Study with more than 6,700 participants over 12.5 years revealed that consuming more than 340 ml of sugar-sweetened beverages per day increased the risk of high triglycerides by 53% and low HDL by 98%; young men aged 20-39 in the highest quartile of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption were more than twice as likely to have low serum testosterone levels; and participants who drank two or more daily servings of sugar-sweetened beverages during adulthood had more than double the risk of developing early-onset colorectal cancer, with a 16% higher risk for each additional daily serving.
Information, not medical advice. Scientific evidence reflects the quality of the studies.