How Many Sodas Does it Take to Get on the Fast Track to Diabetes?

If you’ve been reading Health Watch lately, you know how sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can destroy your health. Processed foods are a major source of these deadly substances…but sugary drinks like soda are the worst offenders.

A team of scientists at Cambridge University tracked the diets of 25,000 people for 11 years. They found that for every 5% increase in daily calories from sugary drinks, subjects’ risk for developing diabetes increased 18%.

Dr. Nita Forouhi was the lead author of this study. She says, “We were able to study beverages, including sweetened tea or coffee, sweetened milk drinks, artificially sweetened beverages and juice… And examine what would happen if they were substituted for water.”

So what happened?

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They found replacing these sugar-sweetened drinks with water—or coffee, or tea—helped lower the odds of facing this deadly disease. And it wasn’t by a percentage point or two. We’re talking up to a 25% reduction.

But how much of these drinks did the subjects have to cut out? That’s the most shocking part…

The researchers only swapped out one sweetened drink a day to see these results.

Think about it… Subjects only needed a 5% increase in caloric intake from these drinks to raise risk almost 20%. For a 2,000-calorie a day diet…just 100 calories from these drinks is all it takes. So what does 100 calories look like?

Well, one can of Coke has 140 calories.2 That’s just shy of 1.5 times the amount you need to put yourself in danger. Now imagine having a few cans a day… Having one with each meal would give you over four times that number. And Coke—or any other cola for that matter—may not even be the biggest threat.

A tall can of sweetened iced tea comes in at 270 calories. Cooling off with a can of lemonade will give you around 150 calories. Even sweetened fruit juices—like Snapple—can have upwards of 200 calories per bottle depending on the flavor.3

There’s no doubt about it… These drinks are some of the most dangerous substances you can put in your body. But remember, switching out just one serving of them a day was enough to drop diabetes risk by up to 25%. Now imagine cutting them out entirely. You’d be taking away one of the biggest contributors to developing diabetes. But that’s not the only solution.

Adding probiotics can help tame blood sugar. Even something as simple as eating more pistachioscan help. Fenugreek—the Indian secret to fighting diabetes—is another natural way to keep your risk low.