How was drinking more sugary beverages linked to weight gain and diabetes in women?

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Sugar-sweetened beverages such as soft drinks and fruit punches contain large amounts of readily absorbable sugars and may contribute to weight gain and type 2 diabetes risk, but these relationships had received little study in adults. The researchers examined associations between sugary beverage consumption, weight change and type 2 diabetes risk in women.

They conducted prospective cohort analyses from 1991 to 1999 among women in the Nurses' Health Study II. The diabetes analysis included 91,249 women who were free of diabetes and other major chronic diseases at baseline in 1991. The weight-change analysis included 51,603 women with complete dietary and body-weight information in 1991, 1995 and 1999. During 716,300 person-years of follow-up, 741 new confirmed cases of type 2 diabetes were identified. The main outcomes were weight gain and incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Women with stable consumption patterns had no difference in weight gain. After adjustment for lifestyle and dietary confounders, four-year weight gain was highest among women who increased sugar-sweetened soft drink intake from one or fewer drinks per week to one or more per day: the multivariate-adjusted means were 4.69 kg in 1991–1995 and 4.20 kg in 1995–1999. Weight gain was smallest among women who decreased their intake, at 1.34 kg and 0.15 kg in the respective periods. Increased fruit punch consumption was also associated with greater weight gain compared with decreased consumption.

After adjustment for potential confounders, women drinking at least one sugar-sweetened soft drink per day had a relative risk of type 2 diabetes of 1.83 compared with those drinking less than one per month (95% confidence interval 1.42–2.36; P<.001 for trend). For fruit punch, the relative risk for at least one drink per day versus less than one per month was 2.00 (95% confidence interval 1.33–3.03; P=.001).

The researchers concluded that higher sugary beverage consumption was associated with greater weight gain and increased type 2 diabetes risk in women, possibly because these drinks provide excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars.