Frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages such as fruit juice, soda and sports drinks from childhood significantly raises the risk of developing high blood pressure in adulthood, according to a large-scale, long-term follow-up study.
The study was published in the latest issue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association (AHA), by a team led by Professor Vasanti Malik of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto in Canada, the medical community said Tuesday.
The research team tracked the dietary habits and health status of 25,749 participants aged 9 to 16 who took part in the first and second cohorts of the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS), which involved children of nurses across the United States, for up to 25 years. Participants regularly reported how often they consumed sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, fruit punch, lemonade, sports drinks and iced tea, as well as fruit juice and whole fruit. The researchers then analyzed the association with subsequent hypertension diagnoses.
The analysis found that the group consuming sugary drinks two or more times a day (355 mL per serving) had a 52% higher risk of developing hypertension than the group consuming them fewer than three times a week. By beverage type, each additional daily serving of soda raised hypertension risk by 23%, while each additional serving of sports drinks raised it by 36%.
Fruit juice was no exception. Those who drank it 1.5 or more times a day (237 mL per serving) had a 35% higher risk than those who consumed it less than once a week, and each additional daily serving of orange juice raised risk by 20%. The same association was not confirmed for apple juice and other juices.
By contrast, replacing sugary drinks or fruit juice with whole fruit lowered the risk. Substituting one daily serving with whole fruit was estimated to lower hypertension risk by 22% for sugary drinks and 19% for fruit juice. Replacing sugary drinks with water or milk reduced the risk by up to 13%, but no significant risk reduction was confirmed when fruit juice was replaced with water or milk.
The research team said the association held even after controlling for other variables such as overall diet quality, physical activity and smoking. It also explained that while total fructose intake itself had no significant correlation with hypertension risk, consuming it in beverage form was linked to increased risk. This means that how fructose is consumed may be more decisive for health than how much fructose is consumed.
Hypertension is a risk factor that can lead to serious conditions such as myocardial infarction and stroke. While family history, age and gender cannot be controlled, dietary habits can be changed. "The incidence of hypertension is rising even among children and adolescents, making early prevention even more important," Professor Malik said. "Sugar-added beverages that are marketed as healthy should also be limited."
