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NewsDrinking sugary beverages daily could more than double your risk of gastric cancer, according to a large new prospective study. Researchers tracked over 112,000 participants for decades and found that those consuming at least one sugar-sweetened drink per day had 2.45 times the gastric cancer risk of non-drinkers. Notably, artificially sweetened beverages showed no similar link.
A major new prospective cohort study published in Gastro Hep Advances has found that regularly drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is associated with a significantly elevated risk of gastric cancer — the first study to demonstrate this specific link. Researchers followed over 112,000 participants from two long-running U.S. cohorts (the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study) for several decades, recording 278 gastric cancer cases in total.
Artificially sweetened beverages, despite ongoing debates about their safety, showed no association with gastric cancer risk after adjusting for age and other factors. Researchers speculate that SSB-specific mechanisms — like fructose metabolism, insulin resistance, inflammation, and gut dysbiosis — may drive the cancer risk, though the precise pathway remains under investigation.
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Why it matters: This is the first prospective evidence linking SSBs specifically to gastric cancer, adding to a growing body of research connecting sugary drinks to multiple cancers. Clinicians now have another data point to counsel patients on reducing SSB consumption — though experts caution that the relative risk increases are modest and further research is needed.
