Graehm Gray: Soda, Childhood Obesity and Pancreatic Cancer
I am sure that by now most of you have seen the recent articles implicating soft drinks and juice and pancreatic cancer. We already know that our children are drinking more sodas and the rates of childhood obesity are sky rocketing-relationship-I think so!! Now, researchers are confirming prior studies demonstrating a relationship with soda and cancer. Actually, the most recent study was just published in the February 2010 issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention: “Soft Drink and Juice Consumption and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: The Singapore Chinese Health Study” with lead author Noel T. Mueller (Cancer Control Program, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia). 60,524 people in the Singapore Chinese Health Study were enrolled and followed for 14 years. Those participants that drank 2 or more drinks (sweetened soda) per week had a statistically significant greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared with those people in the study that did not drink the sodas. There was no association with those people in the study that drank juice. The conclusion by the authors was: “Regular consumption of soft drinks may play an independent role in the development of pancreatic cancer.”
SIDE BAR:
What is the pancreas: it is an organ in the body that hangs out behind the stomach and its job is to produce hormones (think of them as tiny messengers) like INSULIN that are released in response to sugar (glucose)-and the insulin’s job is to balance the sugar.
Pancreatic Cancer: is a cancer of the pancreas-about 40,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with this condition and approximately 35,000 die from the disease. It is a bad disease-only a 30% survival in three years and less than 5% of those diagnosed are alive after five years.
I would say that this is a fairly alarming study-wouldn’t you? How many people in the world consume soda on a daily basis-even drinking them a few times a day. We know that sweetened sodas have been associated with diabetes and obesity. And of course we all know that the sweetener high fructose corn syrup has similar associations and implications (e.g. increase of appetite, diabetes and obesity). In this study, there was no association with juice and pancreatic cancer. That’s good news for all of us juice drinkers. But don’t forget-juice too can raise the blood sugar levels, causing a corresponding rise in the insulin levels. The glucose then falls but the insulin stays elevated-a cause for developing obesity and diabetes. Also, this study only focused on carbonated (bubbles-fiz) sugar-sweetened drinks and not sports drinks or diet soft drinks. There has been some evidence that diet drinks may actually increase appetite and desire for more sweeteners. Another issue is that carbonated drinks are one of the main sources of sugar in the diet-so sugar levels may be one of the suspected causes of increased pancreatic cancer risk in the current study.
So where do we go from here? Well, my suggestion is to be extremely careful with all sugar sources in your diet. Stay with fresh natural fruits. Eating a fruit is always preferred to drinking the juice-its better for the glycemic load.
SIDE BAR:
Glycemic index and load: This tells you how the food you eat affects blood sugar and insulin. The lower the glycemic index or glycemic load, the less it affects blood sugar and insulin levels. For example: apple juice has a glycemic load of 12, but the apple has a glycemic load of 6. This means that your blood sugar will rise much more (almost double) when you drink the juice compared with eating the fruit.
As for sweetened sodas, watch out. They are a group of bad actors. Not only are they associated with diabetes, obesity and cancer, but they also have an association with tooth decay, bone loss and tooth loss. Some sodas are even loaded with caffeine that can have a deleterious effect on your heart-can make your heart beat faster and irregular. Who needs that? And as for diet sodas: although they have mostly zero calories, and will not affect your daily calorie counts, they have been reported to a. increase your appetite-thereby negating the effects of the zero calories, b. they increase your desire for more sugary/sweetened items-again this is not good if drinking a diet drink leads to eating more sugar, c. They have zero nutritional value, d. the sweetener Aspartame has been cleared by the FDA as safe. It breaks down to phenylalanine. So people with Phenylketonuria (PKU)-can’t break down phenylalanine-must stay away.
Stay tuned for more Graehm Gray on exactly what you are drinking and eating. For more information on nutrition, please visit the Food & Nutrition section of the Nerdel News.
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