WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A recent study published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances looked at whether drinking sugar-sweetened beverages or artificially sweetened beverages was linked to a higher risk of gastric cancer.
'This is the first study to demonstrate an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and gastric cancer in a US population,' commented senior author and gastroenterologist Andrew Chan from Massachusetts General Hospital.
'Gastric cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide, but we've known very little about how diet might contribute to this cancer.'
The study included 112,284 people who were followed for more than 3.2 million person-years. Participants completed questionnaires every two years. They reported what they ate and drank, including their intake of sugary drinks such as soda, punch, lemonade and sports drinks. They also provided information about their lifestyle, medical history and health conditions.
Between 1986 and 2022, researchers identified 278 cases of gastric cancer among the participants. The researchers found that people who drank at least one serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage every day had more than twice the risk of developing gastric cancer compared with those who did not drink sugary beverages. The study defined one serving as 8 ounces, or about 237 ml.
The study found a hazard ratio of 2.45, meaning daily consumers had about 2.45 times the risk after other possible risk factors were taken into account. The higher risk was seen in both men and women. Women who drank at least one sugary drink a day had about three times the risk of gastric cancer, while men had about twice the risk compared with those who did not consume sugar-sweetened beverages.
'Several underlying mechanisms have been proposed, including weight gain, insulin resistance, steroid hormone imbalance, inflammation, DNA damage, and dysbiosis,' the study authors wrote.
'However, the precise mechanism of carcinogenic effects of sugar-sweetened beverages has yet to be investigated. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings as well as to investigate the potential biological mechanisms involved.'
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