Sugary Drinks Linked to Global Rise in Diabetes, Heart Disease
New York TimesJan 08
The Facts
According to a study published in Nature Medicine on Monday, sugar-sweetened beverages resulted in 2.2M new cases of Type 2 diabetes and 1.2M cardiovascular disease cases, resulting in about 340K deaths in 2020.
The research analyzed data from 450 surveys among 2.9M individuals across 118 countries and found that adults consume an average of 2.6 eight-ounce servings of sugary drinks weekly.
Latin America and the Caribbean face the highest impact, with sugary drinks contributing to about 24% of new diabetes cases and over 11% of cardiovascular disease cases in 2020.
The Spin
Narrative A
The rapid increase in sugary drink consumption poses a severe public health crisis, particularly in developing nations where health care systems are ill-equipped to handle the surge in diet-related diseases, and aggressive marketing targets vulnerable populations. We need urgent, evidence-based interventions to curb the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages globally.
Narrative B
Several factors, including unhealthy diet and lack of exercise, cause Type 2 diabetes. Key risk factors for heart disease include high cholesterol and smoking. Therefore, this sugary drink study should be taken with a metaphorical pinch of salt — more so because it could neither definitively prove cause and effect nor test a behavior or intervention against a control group.
