Sugary Drinks Kill 340K People a Year

The consumption of sugary drinks contributed to an estimated 184,000 deaths worldwide in 2010. Just a decade later, that number had nearly doubled. A new study published Monday in Nature Medicine finds sugary drink consumption contributed to 340,000 deaths from Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in 2020. "Regulators and policymakers appropriately respond to tragic deaths, whether an airline crash or terrorism attack, but sugary drinks cause much more death and suffering, yet those deaths don't move people in the same way because they are hidden," study co-author Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Tufts University, tells the New York Times. "That has to change."

The study, which estimates the burdens attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages in 184 countries, finds the drinks were linked to 2.2 million new cases of Type 2 diabetes (one in 10) and 1.2 million new cases of cardiovascular disease (one in 30), "with a disproportionate share of those cases concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America," which have been increasingly targeted by soda companies amid declining sales in North America and Europe, per the Times. The beverages contributed to 48% of new diabetes cases in Colombia, almost 33% in Mexico, and 28% in South Africa, per the Guardian. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the drinks contributed to 31% of new diabetes cases and 11% of new heart disease cases.

Sugar-sweetened drinks—including soda, energy drinks, and some juice—cause blood-sugar levels to spike. "Drinking them regularly over time leads to weight gain, insulin resistance and a host of metabolic issues tied to Type 2 diabetes and heart disease," the Guardian notes. But the low- and middle-income nations where these drinks are heavily marketed and sold are "often less well equipped to deal with the long-term health consequences," Mozaffarian tells the outlet. "Much more needs to be done, especially in countries in Latin America and Africa where consumption is high and the health consequence severe." The study does note that consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean is beginning to fall due to soda taxes and better labeling. (More sugary drinks stories.)