Health Risks of Sugary Drinks
Health Risks of Sugary Drinks.. We usually only think about what we eat when it comes to the impact of nutrition on health, when what you drink is actually as important.. Sugary or sweet drinks are so much easier and faster to consume than foods when you think about it.
Cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, overweight and obesity are some of the health risks of sugary drinks consumed frequently according to many nutrition institutes in Europe and the results of several official studies.
Sweet or sugary drinks include sodas- soft drinks (carbonated or non-carbonated varieties), fruits juices, fruit nectars, syrups and sweet alcoholic beverages. The consumption of sugar increased dramatically in the developed Western world, particularly through the consumption of sugary drinks over the last few decades. Meanwhile overweight, obesity and type 2 diabetes were also on the rise, particularly in children.
Various studies highlight the adverse health effects of excessive consumption of sugary drinks. Many of these studies give similar results: High sugar intake leads to an increase in blood triglycerides, reduced HDL- cholesterol as well as the depletion of pancreatic insulin-secreting cells. They show a higher risk of diabetes in people who consume at least 1 or 2 drinks soft drinks- sodas per day as compared to those who did not consume at all.
Certain studies also found that the substitution of sweetened drinks by non-caloric drinks results in a significant decrease in the Body Mass Index in overweight teenagers between the ages of 13 to 18. Furthermore, the implementation of a nutrition education program to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks seems to reduce the prevalence of overweight.
Despite the positive correlation between the sweetened beverage consumption and the risk of overweight, obesity, diabetes and heart diseases, the degree of the correlation is not yet clearly known: How often and how much per day..
Several studies support the hypothesis that when you consume extra calories in solid form- in foods, your body appears to regulate its daily energy intake and you tend to maintain a stable body weight. However, upon ingestion of a high calorie sweet drink, the clearing of energy intake would be different. Indeed, ingestion of a caloric load in liquid form would not lead to a compensatory reduction in energy intake as during the ingestion of solid foods. The consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is associated with caloric overload and weight gain.
It has been proven that sweet drinks promote each of the risk factors that lead to the development of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Metabolic syndrome is defined as the simultaneous presence of several risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, hypoalphalipoproteinemia and abdominal obesity. It is therefore important to measure the number of calories from sugars in the drinks we consume through food labeling.
It is therefore important that you should consider drinking as little sugary beverages as possible, as well as increasing physical activity, observing the energy balance and the quality of fatty acids in foods, to be able to prevent overweight, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Any kind of sweetened drinks generate additional caloric intake, which could be zero if they were replaced by water. So water should be the primary source of hydration.
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