180,000 Deaths A Year Around The World Linked To Sugary Drinks
Mexican Sodas Jeremy Brooks, CC BY-NC 2.0Some not-so-sweet numbers While the science linking sugary drinks with obesity and illness is still uncertain, one new study has come up with a number: 180,000 deaths a year worldwide may be associated with sodas, sports drinks, fruit drinks and other sweet, sweet beverages. In the U.S., 25,000 deaths in 2010 were related to drinking sugary drinks, the study estimated. But the countries that suffered most were low- and middle-income. To get their numbers, public health researchers examined data from the World Health Organization's 2010 Global Burden of Diseases Study about 114 countries representing about 80 percent of the world population. The researchers calculated the associations between people's body mass indices, their sugary drink consumption and deaths from different diseases. They found links between sugared drink consumption and 133,000 worldwide deaths from diabetes, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 6,000 deaths from cancer. Just to be...