Sugary drinks may be the unhealthiest part of the modern American diet. Soft drinks, juices, and sweetened caffeine drinks contain gobs of simple sugars and typically lack functional nutrients, making them outsized contributors to obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and early death. As occasional treats, these beverages are fine to slurp down. Unfortunately, millions imbibe them on a daily basis.
Even more concerning, many of those millions are children. Their staple drink of choice – often provided by their parents – is juice. Though deceptively and colorfully marketed as healthy – "100% juice," "Vitamin C," "organic," "no added sugar" – juices are all essentially empty calories, carrying the same health risks as soft drinks. A new study highlights another potential risk, one that's somewhat counterintuitive.
Published last week in the journal Scientific Reports, the research suggests that children who consume beverages predominantly sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and/or 100% juice have an increased risk of asthma.
Luanne Robalo DeChristopher, a guest researcher at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Katherine L. Tucker, a Distinguished University Professor of Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, probed longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, conducted by the Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics. The large study followed children born in the United States in 2001, from age ~9 months through entry into kindergarten, querying their parents about numerous lifestyle characteristics, including diet.
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