Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of the Brigham Health System at Massachusetts General Hospital, are leading one of the first studies to examine the relationship between intake of sugary, artificially sweetened beverages and the incidence of liver cancer and chronic liver disease. Disease mortality. The findings were recently published in the journal JAMA.

About 65% of U.S. adults regularly drink sugary drinks. Chronic liver disease is a major source of illness and death worldwide and can lead to liver cancer and liver disease-related death. The study found that postmenopausal women who drank sugary drinks daily had a significantly higher risk of these liver-related outcomes compared with postmenopausal women who drank fewer drinks.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and mortality from chronic liver disease," said first author Longgang Zhao, MD, of Brigham Channing Network Medicine. Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher in the Qianning branch, working with senior author Xuehong Zhang (MBBS, ScD). "Our findings, if confirmed, may inform public health strategies to reduce liver disease risk based on data from large and geographically diverse cohorts."

This observational study included nearly 100,000 postmenopausal women in the large prospective Women's Health Initiative study. Participants reported their usual consumption of soft drinks and juice drinks (excluding pure juices) and then reported their consumption of artificially sweetened beverages three years later. Participants were followed for a median of more than 20 years. The researchers looked at self-reported liver cancer incidence and deaths from chronic liver diseases such as fibrosis, cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis, further verified by medical records or the National Death Index.

A total of 98,786 postmenopausal women were included in the final analysis. Compared with women who drank fewer than three sugary drinks per month, 6.8% of women who drank one or more sugary drinks per day had an 85% higher risk of liver cancer and a 68% higher risk of death from chronic liver disease.

The authors note that the study is observational and cannot infer cause and effect, relying only on self-reported responses regarding intake, sugar content and outcomes. More research is needed to verify this risk association and determine why sugary drinks appear to increase the risk of liver cancer and other diseases. Furthermore, more studies are needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms by integrating genetics, preclinical and experimental studies, and omics data.