“Study: Sugary Fruit Drinks and Diabetes

An Article in a recent USA Today Newspaper:

“Study: Sugary Fruit Drinks and Diabetes

A common belief is that consuming too much sugar gives you diabetes, when actually not much is known about how specific nutrients affect people’s risk of the disease. But a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine adds to the evidence that sugar-sweetened fruit drinks might be as much to blame for higher type 2 diabetes rates as sugary soft drinks. And while sugary soft drinks appeared to raise the risk of type 2 diabetes by helping to pack on the pounds, the fruit drinks seemed to raise diabetes risk independent of weight gain.
Harvard and Boston University researchers followed 44,000 African-American women from 1995 through 2005. In 1995, the women were ages 21 to 69 and did not have diabetes. They completed questionnaires about what they ate and drank in 1995 to 2001. In addition, they provided updated information every other year about lifestyle factors such as smoking status and new diagnoses of serious illnesses.
Compared with women who drank less than one a month, the women who reported drinking two or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks a day had a 24% higher risk of diabetes, while those who drank two or more sugar-sweetened fruit drinks had a 31% high risk of diabetes.”