Study: Sugary Drinks Raise Risk of Visceral Fat and Diabetes
People who drink high-sugar drinks daily develop more visceral fat than people who nondrinkers of high-sugar drinks, according to a new study.
Consuming sugary drinks is thought to contribute to the increase of visceral fat, which increases the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. To examine this connection, researchers followed 1003 patients of a mean age of 45 in the Framingham Heart Study for 6 years.
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Researchers measured changes in visceral fat by administering CT scans at baseline and follow-up. Then patients’ completed a questionnaire on their sugary beverage intake and were separated into 4 groups: nondrinkers, occasional drinkers, frequent drinkers, and daily drinkers.
Results showed that daily drinkers had the largest increase in visceral fat than any of the other groups. At the 6-year follow-up, daily drinkers’ visceral fat volume increased by 852cm3 as compared to nondrinkers who increased by 658cm3.
“Regular sugar-sweetened beverage intake was associated with adverse change in both visceral adipose tissue quality and quantity, whereas we observed no such association for diet soda,” researchers concluded.
--Amanda Balbi
Reference:
Ma J, McKeown NM, Hwang SJ, et al. Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is associated with change of visceral adipose tissue over 6 years of follow-up. Circulation. Published online before print January 11, 2016. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.018704.