Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

[mikeyouse]

The key results from the paper:

    After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related
    characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was 
    associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% 
    confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04).
    Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated
    with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033;
    P = .05). No significant associations were observed between
    consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and 
    telomere length.

Shortened telomeres are one way to measure genetic 'age'. So they saw 'aging' with sugar-sweetened soda, the opposite with fruit juice, and no significant difference with diet sodas or non-carbonated sugary sodas.

The study was pretty substantial with ~5,300 participants with no history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes. It's nice to have another datapoint against some of the bro-sciencey "Fruit juice has as much sugar as soda" arguments.

Late Edit:

Here's a pretty good summary of telomere aging:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/telomeres...

[pc2g4d]

Fruit juice may be good for your telomeres, but there are plenty of other reasons to be suspicious of it---"bro-science" it is not. For example, Google "fruit juice and obesity" or see http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/03/09/shout-it-fro...

And besides, who says a "bro" can't science? ;)

[danielki]

Did they describe how they controlled for behavioral habits? It seems like, as a group, the type of people who would drink large amounts of sugary soda would be less likely to make healthy behavioral choices in other aspects of their life, compared to people who drink fruit juice or diet soda. This could also explain the disparity between soda and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages

This study doesn't seem to show that soda ages you (as the article states), but instead that sugary soda consumption indicates a tendency towards other activities/habits that may prematurely age you.

[tbrownaw]

Their confidence intervals include 0 or nearly-0, their P-values are at or near the .05 cutoff, and they tested a bunch of different things and got results on a few that don't really make sense.

In related news, green jelly beans cause acne: https://xkcd.com/882/

[toomuchtodo]

> So they saw 'aging' with sugar-sweetened soda, the opposite with fruit juice, and no significant difference with diet sodas or non-carbonated sugary sodas.

What compounds in soda are most likely causing this? If they're not seeing the results in fruit juice, its not sugar causing the damage.

[DanBC]

> It's nice to have another datapoint against some of the bro-sciencey "Fruit juice has as much sugar as soda" arguments.

Go careful, that's not all broscience. Children especially should not have undiluted fruit juices.

[weinzierl]

    No significant associations were observed between
    consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and 
    telomere length.

I don't understand how the carbonation can have an effect. It's just CO2 and a little bit of H2CO3, neither of which is metabolized.

[wiredfool]

I wonder what would happen with half fruit juice, half carbonated water.

[tripzilch]

Also, you can mix fruit juice 50/50 with water and it'll taste great (depending on thirst, possibly even better). This works with apple juice and OJ[0], but really not with soda (I tried). Of course it helps that I live somewhere where the tap water tastes indistinguishable from bottled water.

Years ago, I was in Austria a lot, where it was a perfectly normal thing to order "Apfelsaft mit Leitungswasser" (apple juice with tap water). Which you'd get for the regular price of an apple juice, in a twice as big glass, that they'd top off with tap water.

[0] also, grapefruit.

[therobot24]

> It's nice to have another datapoint against some of the bro-sciencey "Fruit juice has as much sugar as soda" arguments.

I was under the impression that this expression was used more with regard to dental health

[new_test]

Also, could someone comment on the effect size of b = -.001, which is within the 95% CI. Because if that translates into a day in a hundred years in "longevity" terms or something like that, than I wouldn't call the result "significant", even though the 0 is not technically crossed.

[clouden]

A p-value of 0.04 is not very strong evidence of an effect, though it is significant at the 0.05 level. This study says at most that the effect should continue to be studied.

[jongraehl]

Poor people do prison time and hard drugs more often (both of which might shorten a telomere). I also expect that physically measurable psychological stress is worse for poor (than for type-A work-stress junkies - probably that's more eustress due to control).

[Shivetya]

how do carbonated sugary drinks become less safe than non carbonated sugary drinks if carbonated non sugary drinks are safe?

It seems there is a missing item somewhere.

[frozenport]

Looks like its the carbonation?

[nilkn]

Not to mention it can cause diabetes and it's horrible for your teeth. For me, it also caused acne. Soda's really, really bad for you, and I think at this point it would be viewed the same way that smoking is viewed if it weren't for the fact that soda affects only the consumer whereas cigarettes produce second-hand smoke and a suffocating odor that fills the room.

Maybe 2050's Mad Men will shock its viewers with how office workers in 2000 drank soda in the office.

(This is coming from someone who used to drink soda on a daily basis. I learned to stop when I had to get a crown on a molar in my early 20s.)

[geoka9]

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

[tjr]

For some people, it seems to be. I suspect part of the issue is how abundantly available it is. For example, you go to the theater, and you can either buy a single bottle of water, or a cup of soda with free refills. Many restaurants offer only local tap water as a water choice, which varies in good taste. Lots of vending machines offer only soda, no water, again leaving the water-drinkers to search for a hopefully-clean, hopefully-not-too-bad-tasting drinking fountain.

I'm not saying you can't avoid soda if you try -- I rarely drink it myself -- but the culture seems to basically throw it in your face as the standard beverage of choice.

[vinceguidry]

Pretty sure it's mostly due to marketing and also vertically integrated markets. You can't get away from soft drink advertising in the US. And the stuff is literally everywhere. In many (most?) restaurants, your beverage choices comprise soda and water.

I would not be surprised at all if soda alone accounted for a double-digit percentage of the obesity rate.

[squiguy7]

Given that some of the drinks are also caffeinated, many people drink them as an alternative to coffee or tea. In this sense they can become addictive.

[septerr]

I have the same thoughts. I know folks that are suffering from diabetes, and they drink soda every time I eat with them. And that boggles my mind. It's like they can't bear the taste (or lack thereof) of water. Or they are addicted to soda.

After moving to the U.S, I had more soda than ever before in my life, and that actually made me not like them anymore. Can't drink more than couple sips.

[johnward]

For me it's not the sugar it's the caffeine. Also the taste and bubbles. But caffeine is a physical addiction that is literally painful to break.

[mbca]

Were these sodas sweetened with cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup?

(I did look at the abstract of the actual paper, but it doesn't seem to specify. The full paper might say, but it's paywalled.)

[johnward]

I don't think it matters but chances are it's HFCS.

[Involute]

Are there any studies that associate telomere length with actual organism longevity in primates?

[bengarvey]

Just in case anyone was wondering about diet soda...

"Only the sugary, bubbly stuff showed this effect. Epel didn’t see any association between telomere length and diet soda intake. "

[stealthlogic]

There are studies that link Diet Soda to other vascular risks. http://www.miami.edu/index.php/news/releases/study_finds_pos...

There are also studies emerging which link artificial sweeteners to Diabetes. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/17/artificial-sw...

[jongraehl]

Since she finds a strong shorter-telomere association in neither equally sweet juices NOR in diet soda, this result probably just unhealthy-lifestyle-correlation (e.g. drug addicts and undiagnosed diabetics drink more soda). Also, “The extremely high dose of sugar that we can put into our body within seconds by drinking sugared beverages is uniquely toxic to metabolism” (from her Time interview) seems an overreach. A properly functioning metabolism can handle some sugar, even in a spike.

[pseud0r]

Sugar can increase aging, see for example this for starts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-product

[spikels]

Since longer telomere's may give you brain cancer we should all avoid 100% fruit juice and drink more non-diet soda!

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/06/114956/longer-telomeres-lin...

Better yet ignore these preliminary and contradictory results until we actually understand what is actually going on.

[ck2]

Wait is this the smoking gun to corn syrup?

Because "sugar sweetened sodas" don't exist or are rare, at least not in the USA. They are actually corn-syrup sweetened.

Especially since real sugar filled fruit juices did not have the same effect nor diet soda with no corn-syrup.

[menssen]

This is not a criticism of this study, but I do want to observe that "aging" has a very specific meaning here, and it does not really just mean "harmful."

Aging causes things in your body to fail.

Smoking, also, causes things in your body to fail, regardless of and unrelated to whether it causes "aging."

(Anecdotally, as a person who has gone both through periods of heavy soda [here in the midwest, "pop"] consumption and who has been a pack-a-day smoker, there are orders of magnitude of difference in the effects on general health.)

[pseud0r]

aging = rate of damage / rate of repair

Some damage is intrinsic, caused by free radicals, wrongly transcribed DNA, misfolded proteins etc.

Some damage is caused by external factors like sunlight (skin damage), sugar, smoking, pollution, radiation etc.

Things that increases damage increases aging and things that decreases rate of repair also increases aging.

Exercise increases rate of repair and slows aging in that way, while sitting still all day decreases the rate of repair and thus increases aging.

You seem to think that aging is only the intrinsic damage, but in many cases the type of damage that happens can be the same and external factors can increase the intrinsic damage that happens continuously. Some of this damage will decrease cellular repair mechanisms and thus decrease the rate of repair and you get a vicious cycle, external damage like having a hand chopped of doesn't really influence cellular repair, but smoking and sugar intake do influence cellular repair in a negative way and can thus be said to accelerate aging.

[driverdan]

I don't see anyone discussing that this is based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). NHANES is all self-reported data meaning its accuracy isn't great. It's a decent way of looking for potential research topics but is in no way definitive.

Any papers coming from NHANES data should be considered pre-research. Real data on this topic will come from properly controlled studies.

[e40]

What about something like carbonated cranberry juice? I mix 1 part low-carb Trader Joe's cranberry juice and 4 parts carbonated water, and drink about 20 oz a day. When I first started, it tasted tart and not sweet. I don't think there's much sugar in it.

If it's as harmful, I'd definitely give it up.

[digital-rubber]

Articles with may, could, etc basically don't say anything else but,

'We want some attention for our article now, but do not shoot us if it turns out to be completely bogus. But if we were right, we want to be seen as awesome researchers, bringers of news etc'.

[waylandsmithers]

All I want to know is if I can drink a diet coke a day with impunity.

[john704944]

Is anyone else seeing the website cut off at the bottom? There's no scroll bar, so I can't read beyond one screenfull.

[Rovanion]

What an odd website, does not allow scrolling if javascript isn't turned on.

[igorgue]

Then turn it on...

[novaleaf]

clickbait title from TIME.

from tfa: > Only the sugary, bubbly stuff showed this effect. Epel didn’t see any association between telomere length and diet soda intake.

[squozzer]

It's funny but one never hears about the ill effects of carrots. "They" only study stuff that's already assumed to be bad for you. Ever wonder why?

[brandonl222]

Probably because mass consumption of carrots isn't a top public health issue? If consumption of carrots rivaled that of soda I'd be willing to bet there would be more studies on it just the same as there are studies on various other foods such as red meat, egg cholesterol, fish oil, etc.

[ch4s3]

Are you joking? I can't tell.

[Geee]

It's because of old-school research methods. They haven't yet developed a method which correlates any diet with any effect, so they have to look for correlations from a specific subset of data, which is assumed to return results.

[wiredfool]

http://www.introducingcarrot.com/