In a study that's sure to shake up the soda ban debate, Harvard researchers have linked the sugary drinks to 180,000 deaths a year worldwide, 25,000 in the United States alone.
"We know that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity, and that a large number of deaths are caused by obesity-related diseases. But until now, nobody had really put these pieces together," said Gitanjali Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study presented today at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in New Orleans.
Singh and colleagues spent five years putting the pieces together. Using data from national health surveys around the world, the team tied sugar-sweetened beverages to 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases and 6,000 deaths from cancer in 2010.
The study adds to mounting evidence that sugar-sweetened beverages, loaded with calories that carry little nutritional value, are a public health hazard.
"I think our findings should really impel policymakers to make effective policies to reduce sugary beverage consumption since it causes a significant number of deaths," said Singh, adding that she thinks "cause" is an appropriate word despite the limitations of the association study.
The American Beverage Association criticized the study, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, calling it "more about sensationalism than science."
The study comes one week after a judge blocked New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on supersized sodas, and one day after Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill preventing municipalities from setting limits on soda and salt content.
"It is simply not the role of government to micro-regulate citizens' dietary decisions," Bryant said in a statement. "The responsibility for one's personal health depends on individual choices about a proper diet and appropriate exercise."
Too many drugs too soon, officials say
The nation's top public health official on Tuesday sharply criticized the widespread treatment of aches and pains with narcotics, saying that doctors are prescribing such drugs too soon, too often and for too long - putting patients at risk of addiction and overdose.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that doctors are relying on these powerful drugs to treat chronic pain when physical therapy, exercise and other remedies would be safer and in many cases more effective.
"These are dangerous medications, and they should be reserved for situations like severe cancer pain," Frieden said in his most forceful statement yet on the use of narcotic painkillers. "In many other situations, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Prescribing an opiate may be condemning a patient to lifelong addiction and life-threatening complications."
His comments come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers new controls on the way narcotic painkillers can be prescribed and promoted. Earlier this year, a top Drug Enforcement Administration official publicly supported stricter limits on OxyContin, Vicodin and similar medications to "safeguard the American public."
At the same time, there is a growing awareness among law enforcement officials and public health experts that physicians' prescriptions play a significant role in fueling addiction and overdoses.
A Los Angeles Times analysis of more than 3,700 overdose deaths in Southern California from 2006 through 2011 found that nearly half involved at least one drug prescribed by a doctor. The majority of the deaths involved painkillers, often combined with other narcotics or alcohol. Those who died often began taking painkillers as the result of injuries and became addicted, according to autopsy reports and interviews with friends and family members of the deceased.
Drug overdose is one of the few causes of death in the United States that is worsening, eclipsing fatal traffic accidents in 2009. The CDC put the spotlight on the problem in 2011, declaring the surge in deaths an epidemic, and it has been escalating its efforts to reduce the toll ever since.