Health

Daily sugary drinks can increase liver cancer risk in women, study suggests

By Mallika Marshall, MD

August 9, 2023 / 5:41 PM EDT / CBS Boston

BOSTON - There's a warning for women who regularly consume sugary drinks.

About 65 percent of American adults drink sugar-sweetened beverages every day but a new study published in JAMA finds doing so may be putting women at risk for liver cancer.

A team of researchers, including from Harvard, studied dietary data on nearly 100,000 postmenopausal women over two decades. They found that those who consumed one or more servings a day of sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, had significantly higher rates of liver cancer and chronic liver disease compared to women who drank these beverages no more than three times a month.

The same association was not found with artificially sweetened beverages.

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Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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