Study: Daily Sugar Drinks Can Lead to Liver Disease

Drinking a sugar-sweetened beverage a day may lead to liver disease, according to researchers.

The researchers analyzed more than 2,500 dietary questionnaires from middle-aged men and women enrolled in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Framingham Heart Study’s Offspring and Third Generation cohorts.

A daily sugar-sweetened beverage habit may increase the risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

“Our study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that sugar-sweetened beverages may be linked to Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other chronic diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” said first author Jiantao Ma, Ph.D., a graduate of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is characterized by an accumulation of fat in the liver cells that is unrelated to alcohol consumption.

Being obese or overweight increases the risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is diagnosed by ultrasounds, CT, MRI, or biopsy, and many of the approximately 25 percent of Americans with the disease don’t experience any symptoms.

The sugar-sweetened beverages on the questionnaires included caffeinated- and caffeine-free colas, other carbonated beverages with sugar, fruit punches, lemonade or other non-carbonated, sugary fruit drinks.

The relationships between sugar-sweetened beverages and Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease persisted after the authors accounted for age, sex, body mass index,, and dietary and lifestyle factors such as calorie intake, alcohol, and smoking.

In contrast, after accounting for these factors the authors found no association between diet cola and Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

The Framingham Heart Study participants underwent a computed tomography (CT) scan to measure the amount of fat in the liver and the authors of the current study used a previously defined cut-point to identify non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

They saw a higher prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among people who reported drinking more than one sugar-sweetened beverage per day compared to people who said they drank no sugar-sweetened beverages.