Do sugar-sweetened beverages like soda and fruit drinks cause obesity and diabetes?
The answer may depend on who funds the research asking the question.
An analysis of 60 studies found 26 out of 26 papers that failed to find a link between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity or diabetes were funded by industry sources, compared to one industry-funded study out of the 34 that did find a connection.
Regulations, taxes and nutrition guidance hinge on whether these drinks cause health problems, but opponents of those initiatives continue to question whether the drinks are to blame, the study team writes in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"If it were truly controversial, you would expect some of the independently funded studies would not find associations," said Dr. Dean Schillinger, lead author of the analysis, from the University of California, San Francisco.
For their analysis, the researchers looked for studies published from January 2001 through July 2016 that tested the health effects of sugar-sweetened beverages. Studies sponsored by competing industries like dairy and bottled water were excluded from the analysis.
Twenty six studies failed to find links between the drinks and obesity or diabetes, and all of them were industry-funded. Another 34 studies did find associations between the drinks and those health outcomes, but just one was industry-funded.
Source: www.reuters.com