MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Scott Kaplan PhD
Assistant Professor of Economics
United States Naval Academy
Annapolis, MD 21402
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?Response: Sugar-sweetened beverages (colloquially known as SSBs), which include sodas, fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, and sweetened coffee drinks, are the leading source of added sugars in the American diet, according to the CDC. They are associated with serious negative health outcomes, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, non-alcoholic liver disease, gum disease, tooth decay, and other conditions.
As a result, several cities across the US have implemented sugar-sweetened beverage excise (per ounce) taxes, generally ranging from 1-2 cents per ounce. Most existing studies evaluating the impact of SSB taxes on SSB volume purchased and prices focus on a single city; this study is among the first to provide a composite estimate of the impact of local SSB taxes on purchases and prices of SSBs using retail scanner data from five cities across the US that implemented SSB taxes between January 1, 2017 and January 1, 2018. The five taxed cities we examine are Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Boulder, and Seattle. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Laura Rupprecht, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kelly L Buchanan
The Laboratory of Gut Brain Neurobiology
Duke Medicine – GI
Diego V. Bohórquez PhD
Associate Professor in Medicine
Duke Institute for Brain SciencesDurham, NC
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: In 2018, my laboratory discovered that a cell type in the gut epithelium synapses with the vagus nerve, the nerve which connects the gut and the brain. These gut cells are called neuropod cells. Neuropod cells transduce sugar within milliseconds using the neurotransmitter glutamate. Since then, we have been interested in defining how this rapid communication between neuropod cells and the brain regulates behavior. – Diego Bohórquez
Over a decade ago, it was shown that the gut is the key site for discerning sugar and non-caloric sweetener. But the specific cell in the gut that underlies this effect was unknown. – Kelly Buchanan (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jinhee Hur, PhD
Research Fellow
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA 02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Early-onset colorectal cancer (EO-CRC, age <50 years at diagnosis) is rapidly rising in the US since the mid-1980s, with an unclear understanding of its etiology and contributors to the rise. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) exert adverse metabolic repercussions throughout the life course, including insulin resistance and inflammation. Higher SSB intake can induce obesity, which has been linked to risk of EO-CRC. A recent experimental study also suggests that high fructose corn syrup, a primary sweetener in SSBs, may promote colon tumor growth, independent of metabolic dysregulation. In the US, SSB consumption has dramatically increased during the 2nd half of the 20th century, and adolescents and young adults have been the heaviest SSB drinkers across all age groups. Thus, we expect SSBs may be an emerging risk factor for EO-CRC and likely contribute to the rising incidence of EO-CRC.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Nadia Koyratty PhD student
Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health
University at Buffalo
State University of New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The literature suggests that sugars contribute to the incidence of breast cancer, but few exists on the prognosis after a breast cancer diagnosis.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?Response: Compared to breast cancer patients who never or rarely drank non-diet soda, those who reported drinking non-diet soda five times or more per week had a 62% higher likelihood of dying from any causes, and were 85% more likely to die from breast cancer specifically.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Eric Crosbie, PhD, MA
Assistant Professor
School of Community Health Sciences
Ozmen Institute for Global Studies
University of Nevada Reno
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: My colleague Dr. Laura Schmidt and I established a framework for studying preemption (when a higher level of government limits the authority of lower levels to enact laws) by studying the history of state preemption of local tobacco control policies in the U.S., which we published last year (2020) in AJPH. We noticed the same strategies that the tobacco industry employed were now being used by the beverage industry to suppress local taxation policies on sugar sweetened beverages (e.g. soda, coffee drinks, energy drinks, etc). We used this preemption framework to publish a new study this year in AJPH that analyzed state preemption of local sugar sweetened beverage taxes in the U.S.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Kimber L. Stanhope PhD RD
Department of Molecular Biosciences
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California
Dr. Bettina Hieronimus PhD
Institute of Child Nutrition
Max Rubner-Institut,
Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food
Karlsruhe
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Sugar consumption is associated with increased body weight and other metabolic diseases. Fructose in particular seems to be detrimental to health as it causes higher increases in blood lipids compared to glucose.
Our study assessed the effects of sugar consumption on cardiometabolic risk factors. We compared the effects of consuming glucose, two different doses of fructose or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) with a non-caloric sweetener. Our subjects were healthy young individuals who drank three sweetened beverages per day over the course of two weeks.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Zhila Semnani-Azad, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Nutritional Sciences
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dietary fructose-containing sugars have been suggested to be an important contributing factor to increased metabolic syndrome risk. Several studies have consistently shown a strong association between sugar-sweetened beverages and increased incidence of metabolic syndrome. There is little information, however, on the role of other food sources of fructose-containing sugars in the development of metabolic syndrome.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Lori Spruance PhD
Assistant Professor, Public Health
College of Life Sciences
Brigham Young University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: I was interested in studying this phenomenon after I attended a research conference presentation where the presenter was describing results from a study where they found that children between ages 6-11 who were physically active drank more sugar-sweetened beverages than children in that age group who were not physically active. The presenter suggested that they believed this was due to youth sports and Gatorade consumption.
I was really intrigued by the fact that kids were getting physical activity, but had really high sugar-sweetened beverage intake. Prior to the study, I did some qualitative interviews with parents of children involved in youth sports. During these interviews, parents discussed the “snack culture” and the shame they sometimes feel being the “healthy parent”. I really wanted to investigate further what was happening.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Marta Yanina Pepino, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition
Division of Nutritional Sciences
College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences Administration
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL 61801
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: There is a general belief that substituting sugars with low calorie sweeteners contributes to diet healthfulness. However, accumulating data suggest that consuming a diet high in low calorie sweeteners , mainly in diet sodas, is associated with the same health issues than consuming a diet high in added sugars, including an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The potential mechanism underlying such association are varied and still unclear. Our findings contribute to the growing evidence that despite having very little or no calories, sweeteners can affect our metabolism (i.e. the way we handle blood sugar) and that their effects may be different in people with obesity from those of normal weight.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michael WinterdahlPhD
Associate Professor in Neuroimaging,
Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center
Aarhus University, DenmarkMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Opioids and dopamine mediate the rewarding effects of drugs. We aimed to determine whether the intake of palatable food could lead to changes in the brain similar to those triggered by addictive substances, so we studied the effects of repeated intermittent access to sugar on opioid and dopamine receptors in porcine brain using neuroimaging.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Alex Bentley
Head of Anthropology
University of Tennessee
Knoxville TNMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: In recent years, considerable evidence has accumulated suggesting that excess sugar consumption, e.g. in sugar-sweetened beverages, has been a major driver of the U.S. obesity crisis. Critics of this idea, however, have asked: why did the rise in sugar consumption precede the U.S. obesity crises by a decade or more, and why did obesity continue to rise even after sugar consumption began declining the early 2000s?
We modeled the delayed onset of obesity by assuming that diet is a cumulative process that begins in childhood. On average, each age cohort (birth year) has its own specific cumulative exposure to excess sugar in their diets. The inherent delay in our model links childhood consumption of excess sugar with propensity for adult obesity as an adult. Our model explains a simple process by which excess sugar in diets of children of the 1970s and 1980s could explain the sharp increase of adult obesity that began in the 1990s.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jean A. Welsh, RN, MPH, PhD
Departments of Epidemiology and Pediatrics
Emory University
Wellness Department, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: As the evidence has accumulated regarding the health risks associated with sugar-sweetened beverages, I’ve wondered about fruit juices. Though they have a kind of healthy halo, their main ingredients are the same as sugar-sweetened beverages, sugar and water. We know that young children drink a lot of fruit juice, and I’ve wondered if older children and adults might switch to drinking more as concern grows about soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Daniel Hwang PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The aim of the this study is to understand the genetic basis of human taste perception. In this international collaboration project, we started by collecting sensory data from twins in the Australia and USA since 2003. Based on the difference in the genetic relatedness between identical and non-identical twins, our previous studies have quantified the amount of genetic influence on sweet taste perception (https://doi.org/10.1017/thg.2015.42) as well as the other sensory phenotypes (https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjs070).(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:E. van Eekelen, MSc | PhD Candidate
Leiden University Medical Center
Dept. Clinical Epidemiology
Leiden, The Netherlands
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Fatty liver, defined as excess accumulation of fat within the liver, covers a broad clinical spectrum and is the leading cause of chronic liver diseases. It has also been linked to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The consumption of alcohol is a well-established risk factor for fatty liver. However, we hypothesized that consumption of non-alcoholic energy-containing beverages also leads to liver fat accumulation. We analysed data from the Netherlands Epidemiology of Obesity (NEO) study, which is a prospective population-based cohort study including non-invasive measurements of liver fat content by magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Besides consumption of alcoholic beverages, sugar sweetened beverages were associated with more liver fat. We specifically showed that replacement of alcoholic beverages with milk was associated with less liver fat, whereas replacement with sugar sweetened beverages was associated with a similar amount of liver fat, even when taking calories into account.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Asher Y Rosinger, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Anthropology
Director of the Water, Health, and Nutrition Laboratory
Pennsylvania State University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption has been linked to many negative health conditions, such as weight gain, dental caries, and type 2 diabetes. Previous research found that when you replace sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) with water intake then total energy intake goes down. We wanted to know how many calories from SSBs children consume when they drink water or not since sugar-sweetened beverages are often used as a replacement for water. SSB intake has been falling among children over the last 15 years, but there are still pockets and sub-populations that have high consumption levels. It is critical to identify which kids are particularly at risk for high SSB intake since this can lead to these negative health effects.
Overall we found that kids that did not consume any plain water (from tap or bottled water) consumed almost twice as many calories and percent of total calories from sugar-sweetened beverages than kids that consumed water. And for the sample overall that translated to nearly 100 extra calories on a given day.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Sofia B. Villas‐Boas Ph.D and
Scott Kaplan, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics,
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720‐3310MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: The background leading up to this study is the fact that in 2014, the city of Berkeley passed the nation’s first sugar-sweetened beverage tax, also called soda tax, through a 75% YES public vote. Using beverage sales data from U. C Berkeley campus retailers, we find that sales of soda fell relative to non-SSB beverages by 10-20% after the election outcome and before the tax was ever passed on to consumers.
We know this to be the case because the campus only passed through the higher prices to consumers in middle of 2016. This effect is also found when we look at beverage sales in retail outlets near U C Berkeley. There, quantity dropped after the Yes election outcome relative to quantity changes in counterfactual stores (in retailers near other U C campuses where the tax was not passed and with comparable patterns of sales to those in the city of Berkeley at baseline).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Miriam Vos, MD, MSPH
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director
Pediatric Fatty Liver Program
Emory and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Fatty liver disease has quickly become a common problem in children and adolescents, affecting an estimated 7 million children in the U.S. This study resulted from our previous research demonstrating that fructose increases cardiometabolic risk factors in children with NAFLD in addition to other research that had demonstrated associations between NAFLD and sugar. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Casey M. Rebholz, PhD, MS, MNSP, MPH, FAHA
Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Core Faculty, Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research
Baltimore, MD 21287
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Individual beverages have been previously shown to influence risk of a wide range of cardiometabolic diseases. Less is known about beverage consumption and kidney disease risk.
In this study population, we found that one such beverage pattern consisted of soda, sugar-sweetened beverages, and water, and that higher adherence to the sugar-sweetened beverage pattern was associated with greater odds of developing incident kidney disease, even after accounting for demographic characteristics and established risk factors.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jennifer Woo Baidal, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Pediatric Weight Management,
Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition,
Columbia University Medical Center &
New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Childhood obesity prevalence is historically high, with most incident obesity among children occurring before age 5 years. Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity are already apparent by the first years of life. Latino/Hispanic children in low-income families are at-risk for obesity. Thus, understanding potentially effective ways to prevent childhood obesity, particularly in vulnerable populations, should focus on early life.
Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is a modifiable risk factor for obesity and is linked to other adverse health outcomes. Maternal SSB consumption in pregnancy and infant sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in the first year of life are linked to later childhood obesity.
We sought to describe beverage consumption in a modern cross-sectional cohort of 394 low-income, Latino families, and to examine the relationship of parental attitudes toward sugar-sweetened beverages with parental and infant SSB consumption.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kimber L. Stanhope, Ph.D., M.S., R.D.
Research Nutritional Biologist
Department of Molecular Biosciences: SVM
University of California, DavisMedicalResearch.com:? What are the main findings of this study?Response: Sugar-sweetened beverages increase risk factors for cardiometabolic disease compared with calorically-equal amounts of starch.
We are not the first group of experts to reach this conclusion. The Nutrition and Chronic Diseases Expert Group reached a similar conclusion last year (Micha, 2017). Yet very different conclusions/opinions are being still being published by other researchers. (Latest example: Archer E., In Defense of Sugar: A Critique of Diet-Centrism. Progress in Cardiovascular Disease, May 1, 2018).
These conflicting conclusions confuse the public and undermine the implementation of public health policies, such as soda taxes and warning labels, that could help to slow the epidemics of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. We hope that the careful review of the evidence and the discussion of issues that can lead to conflicting opinions in nutrition research in this paper will help to clarify this issue.
Consumption of polyunsaturated (n-6) fats, such as those found in some vegetable oils, seeds, and nuts, lowers disease risk when compared with equal amounts of saturated fats.
It is important to note however, that the effects of saturated fat can vary depending on the type of food. Dairy foods such as cheese and yogurts, which can be high in saturated fats, have been associated with reduced cardiometabolic risk.
The non-caloric sweetener aspartame does not promote weight gain in adults.
Aspartame is the most extensively studied of the non-caloric sweeteners. None of the dietary intervention studies that have investigated the effects of aspartame consumption have shown it promotes body weight gain.
This includes studies in which the adult research participants consumed aspartame for 6 months, 1 year or 3 years.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Juliana F. W. Cohen, ScM, ScD
Department of Health Sciences
Merrimack College
North Andover MA 01845.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Sugar consumption among Americans is above recommended limits and this excess intake may have important health implications.
This study examined the associations of pregnancy and offspring sugar consumption, as well as sugar-sweetened beverages, other beverages (diet soda, juice), and fruit consumption with child cognition.
This study found that when pregnant women or their children consumed greater quantities of sugar, as well as when women consumed diet soda during pregnancy, this was associated with poorer childhood cognition. However, children’s fruit consumption was associated with higher cognitive scores.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Eugene B. Chang, MD
Martin Boyer Professor of Medicine
Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60637 and
Kristina Martinez-Guryn, Ph.D., R.D. Assistant Professor Biomedical Sciences Program Midwestern University Downers Grove IL
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Dr. Martinez-Guryn: The original goal of this study was to understand why mice devoid of all microorganisms (germ free mice) are protected from diet-induced obesity. We demonstrate that these mice display severely impaired lipid absorption even when fed a high fat diet.
Dr. Chang: We found that many of the processes of dietary lipid digestion and absorption are dependent on and modulated by the gut microbiome which itself responds to dietary cues to adjust the small intestine’s ability and capacity to handle dietary lipids appropriately. This interplay is important for general health, but the findings are also relevant to conditions of overnutrition (obesity, metabolic syndrome) and undernutrition (starvation, environmental enteropathy). In conditions of overnutrition, high fat, simple sugar, low fiber foods typical of western diets promote small intestinal microbes (which have been largely neglected by the scientific community) that promote fat digestion and absorption. This increases our capacity to assimilate dietary fats which can contribute to the overnutrition problem. In conditions of undernutrition, these types of gut microbes are lost or minimally represented. Thus, when nutritional repletion is started, the gut’s ability to upregulate its capacity for dietary lipid digestion and absorption is compromised.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Teresa A. Marshall, PhD
Professor in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry
University of Iowa College of Dentistry
Iowa City
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dental caries is a process during which oral bacteria ferment carbohydrates to produce acid. The acid demineralizes enamel and/or dentin at the tooth surface leading to white spots and eventually cavitation in the tooth. Added sugars – those not naturally present in foods or beverages, but rather added during processing – are the primary type of carbohydrate associated with caries. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs; beverages with added sugars) are the food/beverage category most associated with dental caries.
Historically, fluoride has protected against caries through remineralization of the enamel. However, there has been some question as to whether fluoride’s ability to protect against caries is overwhelmed by the quantity of added sugars currently consumed.
Oral hygiene behaviors – brushing and flossing – are thought protect against caries by disrupting the oral bacteria on the tooth.
Most studies have investigated dietary factors and caries during early childhood, with less attention paid to caries during adolescence.
Our objective was to identify associations between longitudinal beverage intakes and adolescent caries experience, while also considering fluoride intake and tooth brushing behaviors.
We followed a group of children from birth through age 17 years; during this time period, we looked at their beverage intakes, fluoride intakes and brushing behaviors every 3-6 months. We calculated their average milk, 100% juice, SSB, water/water-based beverage and fluoride intakes from 6 months through 17 years, and daily tooth brushing from 1 through 17 years.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Elizabeth E. Hatch, PhD
Professor, Epidemiology
School of Public Health
Boston University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We are conducting a large, ongoing, preconception cohort study, PREgnancy STudy Online or PRESTO http://sites.bu.edu/presto/ in the U.S. and Canada of couples who are planning a pregnancy. The overall goal of the study is to identify factors that affect fertility, measured by the time taken to conceive, and factors that affect the risk of miscarriage. Since many women are postponing pregnancy until the later reproductive years, we would like to help find behavioral and environmental factors that might either help or harm fertility so that couples can avoid the stress and expense of infertility workups and treatment. As part of the larger study, we looked at consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) by both the male and female partner, since some previous research suggested that sugar-sweetened beverages might harm semen quality and ovulation.
For this analysis, we included 3,828 women aged 21 to 45 and 1,045 of their male partners. We asked both males and females (in separate baseline questionnaires) about their usual consumption of SSBs over the last month, and we had a drop-down menu with names of individual sodas (both sugar-sweetened and diet) and energy drinks. We also asked general questions about the frequency of fruit juice and ‘sports drink’ consumption. In our analysis, we controlled for multiple factors that might ‘confound’ the associations, such as body mass index, education, caffeine, smoking and alcohol consumption, as well as a measure of overall diet quality.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Maria Luger, MSc
SIPCAN
Special Institute for Preventive Cardiology And Nutrition
Spendenbegünstigte Einrichtung gem. FW 1914/19.3.2005
Vorstand: Univ.-Prof. Prim. Dr. Friedrich Hoppichler
Salzburg, Austria
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. Rising consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has been a major contributor to the obesity epidemic and it increases the risk of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, as previous evidence has shown. Partly inconsistent findings from previous reviews have fueled discussions on the impact of SSBs on obesity development.
Therefore, the aim of our review was to systematically review the recent evidence in children and adults.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Thomas Farley, MD, MPH
Health Commissioner
Department of Public Health
City of Philadelphia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Messages in the mass media have been used in anti-smoking campaigns, but have not be used much for other health-related behaviors. Sugar-sweetened beverages are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the United States, so they are an important public health target.
In this study we evaluated a brief counter-advertising campaign in a rural area of Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky designed to reduce consumption of these beverages. After the campaign, adults in the area were more wary of sugary drinks, and sales of sugary drinks fell by about 4% relative to changes in a matched comparison area.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Shu Wen Ng, Ph.D., FTOS
Research Associate Professor, Department of Nutrition
Gillings School of Global Public Health
Fellow, Carolina Population Center
Duke-UNC Center for Behavioral Economics and Healthy Food Choice Research
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: The Mexican government enacted a 1 peso per liter tax on sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) after studies showed that more than 70 percent of the country’s population was overweight or obese, and that in excess of 70 percent of the added sugar calories in the Mexican diet were coming from SSBs. We were interested in learning how purchases of SSBs and other beverages changed in the 2 years after the tax was implemented in Mexico. The Health Affairs study titled “In Mexico, Evidence Of Sustained Consumer Response Two Years After Implementing A Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax” found that in the two-year period spanning 2014 to 2015, the tax resulted in a 5.5 percent reduction in the first year and continued to decline, averaging 9.7 percent the second year, with lower socioeconomic households, for whom health care costs are most burdensome, lowered their purchases of sweetened beverages the most. Meanwhile, purchases of untaxed beverages such as bottled water increased 2.1 percent.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Marlene B. Schwartz PhD
Director, Rudd Center for Obesity & Food Policy (Principal Investigator)
Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies
University of Connecticut
Hartford, CT 06103
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a community-wide campaign to reduce consumption of sugary beverages in Howard County, Maryland. We measured the retail sales of sugary drinks in supermarkets in the target community and a set of matched control supermarkets in another state. The campaign included multiple components over three years, including television advertising, digital marketing, direct mail, outdoor advertising, social media and earned media, creating 17 million impressions. The community partners successfully advocated for public policies to encourage healthy beverage consumption in schools, child care, health care and government settings.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Marta Alegret
Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutic Chemistry
Pharmacology Section
School of Pharmacy and Food Sciences
University of Barcelona
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In humans, an excessive intake of sugars has been linked to the development of metabolic disturbances, and therefore to an increase in the risk for cardiovascular diseases. Specifically, increased consumption of simple sugars in liquid form, as beverages sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or sucrose, has been linked to obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. However, two questions remain unresolved: what is/are the underlying molecular mechanism(s) linking these metabolic alterations to cardiovascular diseases? Are the adverse cardiovascular and metabolic effects of sugar-sweetened beverages merely the consequence of the increase in caloric intake caused by their consumption?
To answer to these questions, we performed a study in female rats, which were randomly assigned to three groups: a control group, without any supplementary sugar; a fructose-supplemented group, which received a supplement of 20% weight/volume fructose in drinking water; and a glucose-supplemented group, supplemented with 20% weight/volume glucose in drinking water.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Bradley C. Johnston, PhD
Prevention Lab, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute
Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning
Toronto, Ontario
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?Response: I am scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children and a professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Toronto and McMaster University in Canada. I have a particular interest in research methodology and preventive medicine. As a research methodologist I am interested in how researchers get to their conclusions. In particular I am interested in the “uncertainty” in estimated treatment or exposure effects.
Many guidelines have methodological issues but it was suspected that the nutritional guidelines were especially problematic. Our study in Annals of Internal Medicine set out to document the issues systematically with respect to sugar intake recommendations from authoritative guidelines.
(more…)
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