Sugary Drinks Linked To 180,000 Annual Deaths Around The World

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/20/1747441/sugary-drinks-deaths-around-the-world/

by Tara Culp-Ressler
March 20th 2013

New research finds that the consumption of sugary drinks and sodas contributes to about 180,000 obesity-related deaths around the world — including the deaths of about 25,000 adult Americans — each year.

According to a new study presented on Tuesday at a meeting of the American Heart Association, one out of every 100 obesity-related deaths around the world can be tied to sugary drinks, which directly exacerbate health conditions like diabetes, heart diseases, and cancer. Specifically, the over-consumption of those beverages increased global deaths from diabetes by 133,000, from cardiovascular disease by 44,000 and from cancer by 6,000.

Although the United States doesn’t currently have the highest rate of deaths associated with sugary drinks — that dubious distinction goes to Mexico, where people consume more sugar-sweetened beverages than anywhere else in the world — Americans still get the majority of their calories from those type of drinks. The experts who contributed to the study explained that’s a big issue because those calories don’t provide any nutritional value,

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