Fruit Juice May Be as Unhealthy as Soda

Researchers from the University of Glasgow in Scotland contend the high sugar content in fruit juice makes it as potentially unhealthy as sugar-sweetened beverages such as carbonated drinks and sodas.

In their study, researchers from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow proposed that the U.K. government change the current “five a day” guideline to exclude a portion of fruit juice from the list of fruits and vegetable servings that count toward it. The investigators also urged food companies to improve container labeling of fruit juices to inform consumers they should drink no more than 150 ml of fruit juice a day.

The researchers refer to a trial where participants drank half a liter of pure grape juice every day for 3 months. That trial, they say, showed that grape juice—despite its high antioxidant properties—led to increased insulin resistance and bigger waists in overweight adults.

They also cited an online poll of more than 2,000 adults that tested public awareness of the sugar content of fruit juices. In that study, respondents were asked to look at pictures of containers filled with non-alcoholic drinks and estimate how many teaspoons of sugar each contained. The results showed that, even though all the drinks had a similar sugar content, the respondents underestimated the sugar content of fruit juices and smoothies by 48 percent on average, and overestimated the sugar content of carbonated drinks by an average of 12 percent.

Naveed Sattar, MD, professor of metabolic medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, and co-author of the study, says that research is beginning to show that high fruit juice intake is linked to a greater risk for diabetes, whereas high consumption of solid fruit intake appears linked either to reduced or neutral risk for diabetes.

According to Sattar, there are strong public health reasons for taxing or targeting sugary drinks in some way, so as to reduce consumption. And, while he did not advocate that children should not drink fruit juice at all, Sattar urged public health policymakers to include fruit juice when they debate the issue of sugar-sweetened drinks.

With regard to advising patients who drink excessive amounts of fruit juice about diet and sugary drinks, “patients should of course be encouraged to cut their sugary drinks and replace them with water or diet drinks,” says Sattar. “And, of course, patients must be warned not to replace fruit juice with a similar amount of sugar and calories [found in] sugary drinks.” 

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Sattar N, Gill J. Fruit juice: just another sugary drink? The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. 2014.