Sugary drinks blamed for 10% of diabetes cases
Sweet drinks are responsible for one in ten cases of diabetes worldwide, including Switzerland. In addition, one in 30 cardiovascular diseases is directly linked to the consumption of sugary drinks, as a new study in the journal Nature Medicine shows.
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Political measures are therefore urgently needed, the international research team emphasised in the study published on Monday.
In Switzerland, the researchers attributed 10.5% of cases of type 2 diabetes diagnosed in 2020 to the consumption of soft drinks, lead author of the study Laura Lara-Castor, from Tufts University in Boston, United States, told the Keystone-SDA news agency. In the case of cardiovascular diseases, soft drinks were responsible for 3.1% of all new cases.
This means that the figures in Switzerland are comparable with those from other European countries such as Germany, Austria, Spain and Sweden.
Between 1990 and 2020, the proportion of diabetes cases attributable to sweet drinks increased by 1.3% worldwide
Sugary drinks are responsible for almost a quarter of all type 2 diabetes cases in Latin America and the Caribbean. In sub-Saharan Africa, cases of type 2 diabetes rose the most between 1990 and 2020, increasing by 8.8 percentage points.
Over 200 institutions worldwide took part in the international study – including the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland.
Translated from German by DeepL/mga
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