Sugary sodas and fruit juices have never been the poster children for healthy eating.
These beverages have long been criticized as culprits of empty calorie consumption, often containing more sugar than four Krispy Kreme donuts. This excess can lead to increased risks of chronic health issues such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and dental decay.
Now, emerging research suggests a new danger: consuming just one sugary drink per day might significantly heighten your chances of developing fatal stomach cancer.
In this latest study, researchers associated with Harvard delved into the health records of over 100,000 adults. Participants completed biennial surveys detailing their dietary patterns and beverage intake.
From the analysis, a startling pattern emerged. Individuals consuming at least one sugar-laden drink daily had more than double the risk of stomach cancer compared to those who avoided these beverages entirely.
And women were the most vulnerable, with a three-fold increased likelihood of being diagnosed with the condition compared to two-fold for men.
The researchers noted that while more research is needed to find a firm association between sugary drinks and gastric cancer, the new study is the first of its kind to investigate the potential relationship.
The findings also come as scientists race to find causes behind a nationwide surge in stomach cancer cases, particularly among adults under 50.
People who drank just one sugar-sweetened beverage like soda a day were twice as likely to develop stomach cancer in a new study (stock image)
Artificially sweetened beverages, however, were not associated with an increased risk of stomach cancer.
‘This is the first study to demonstrate an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and gastric cancer in a US population,’ Andrew T Chan, senior study author and gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said.
‘Gastric cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide, but we’ve known very little about how diet might contribute to this cancer.’
According to the American Cancer Society, about 31,500 Americans are diagnosed with stomach cancer every year and just under 11,000 die.
Patients on average are 68 years old, and the majority are diagnosed after age 65.
While cases were on a steady decline for nearly a century, starting in the 2010s, there has been an uptick in younger groups.
Among people under 50, diagnoses have risen by roughly one percent a year, which experts say may be due to ultra-processed foods, antibiotic use and the stomach bacteria H pylori.
Early warning signs can be vague and easy to dismiss, including persistent abdominal pain, bloating and frequent burping. Rather than triggering alarm, these symptoms are often brushed off as stress, diet or minor digestive issues.
Instead of anything sudden or dramatic, many patients simply report a lingering sense that something is ‘off’ – a low‑level discomfort that gradually worsens over time.
By the time they seek help, they are often already at later, harder-to-treat stages.
Alt-rock band drummer Steven Kopacz is pictured at left with his family. He is battling stomach cancer for the second time. At right is Carly Douglas with her youngest child in April. She died at 34 after being diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer
In the new study, published in Gastro Hep Advances, researchers looked at health data from 112,284 adults enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.
Participants filled out questionnaires every two years on dietary habits, including information on sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, punch, lemonade and sports drinks. These generally include high-fructose corn syrup, though the researchers did not specify what sugars the beverages were sweetened with.
The team did, however, differentiate between sugar-sweetened beverages and those sweetened using artificial sweeteners, such as diet sodas.
Between 1986 and 2022, there were 278 documented cases of gastric cancer.
People who consumed at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day – defined as 8oz or 237ml – were 2.4 times more likely to develop gastric cancer compared to those who never drank the beverages after adjusting for other risk factors.
While the risk was elevated for both men and women, women were at a three-fold greater risk while men were twice as likely to develop the disease. Men are typically more prone to stomach cancer, so the cause of the discrepancy is unclear.
Researchers are still identifying exactly why sugar-sweetened beverages may raise this risk, and are exploring multiple areas.
‘Several underlying mechanisms have been proposed, including weight gain, insulin resistance, steroid hormone imbalance, inflammation, DNA damage and dysbiosis [a gut microbiome imbalance],’ they wrote.
‘However, the precise mechanism of carcinogenic effects of sugar-sweetened beverages has yet to be investigated. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings as well as to investigate the potential biological mechanisms involved.’