CAMPAIGN

Sugary Drinks And Type 2 Diabetes

Soda bottle with deadly skull being poured out

Type 2 diabetes is scientifically linked to drinking sugary drinks

Just one to two sugary drinks a day increases your risk for type 2 diabetes by 26%.(1) This life-threatening health condition has reached epidemic levels, having risen three-fold in the last 30 years and affecting more than 29 million Americans.(2)

What the beverage industry doesn't want you to know about sugary drinks and type 2 diabetes...

Rocket with unhappy face

If current trends continue...

  • 40% of all Americans will get [type 2] diabetes in their lifetimes (3)
  • Half of Latino and African American children born in 2000 will get [type 2] diabetes sometime in their lives. (4)(5) 
  • Already, almost one-quarter of teens have either [type 2] diabetes or pre-diabetes – double the rate of just 10 years ago. (6)
skull and cross bones

Liquid Sugar is Uniquely Harmful

  • Liquid sugar is a unique driver of today’s skyrocketing [type 2] diabetes and obesity epidemics. (7) 
  • We absorb liquid sugar in as little as 30 minutes, much faster than a candy bar, leading to a spike in blood sugar that the body is not well equipped to handle, particularly over and over. (8) These spikes in blood sugar overwhelm the body and lead to the body turning sugar into fat in the liver, which contributes directly to the development of [type 2] diabetes. (9)
toe tag

Complications of diabetes include:

  • heart disease
  • nerve damage
  • gum infections
  • kidney disease
  • hearing impairment
  • blindness
  • amputation of toes, feet or legs
  • increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. (10) 

Diabetes cost the United States an estimated $245 billion in 2012, with $176 billion in direct medical costs and $69 billion in indirect costs such as lost productivity, disability and premature death. (11)

Youth Lead the Conversation

The Bigger Picture Campaign, created by Youth Speaks Inc. and the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, aims to tackle the growing problem of type 2 diabetes. It empowers young people to shift the conversation about the disease and address the social and environmental issues contributing to its spread.

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About

The Open Truth Campaign is a collaboration between Shape Up San Francisco (project of the Population Health Division of the SFDPH) and The Bigger Picture (Youth Speaks and Center for Vulnerable Populations/UCSF), Alameda County Department of Public Health, Sonoma County Department of Health Services, the American Heart Association Greater Bay Area Division, the Community Engagement and Health Policy Program of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI), at UCSF, and the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California.

Produced by Your Message Media
OPEN TRUTH Press Release.2.17.15

Sources

  1. Malik, V. S., & Hu, F. B. (2012). Sweeteners and risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes: the role of sugar-sweetened beverages. Current diabetes reports, 12(2), 195-203. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11892-012-0259-6
  2. American Diabetes Association. 2014 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, 2014.  http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics.  Accessed June 23, 2014.
  3. Gregg, Edward W., et al. “Trends in lifetime risk and years of life lost due to diabetes in the USA, 1985–2011: a modelling study.” The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology (2014).
  4. Naryan KM, Boyle J, et. Al. Lifetime Risk for Diabetes Mellitus in the United States.  AMA. 2003;290(14):1884-1890.
  5. Narayan KM. CDC issues diabetes warning for children. ADA Meetings. New Orleans, La; June 14, 2003.
  6. May AL, Kuklina EV, Yoon PW.  Prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors among US adolescents, 1999-2008. Pediatrics. 2012; 129(6):1035-1041.
  7. Centers for Disease Control.  Long-Term Trends in Diagnosed Diabetes, 2011. http://cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/slides/long_term_trends.pdf.  Accessed June 23, 2014.
  8. JP, Shapira N, Debeuf P, et al. Effects of soft drink and table beer consumption on insulin response in normal teenagers and carbohydrate drink in youngsters. Eur J Cancer Prev 1999;8:289–95.
  9. Mayes, PA (1993). Intermediary metabolism of fructose. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 58: 5, 754S-765S.
  10. American Diabetes Association. Complications. Web. Accessed on January 16, 2014 at http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/
  11. Centers for Disease Control.  National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2014.http://www.cdc.gov/diabeteS/pubs/statsreport14/national-diabetes-report-web.pdf, Accessed June 23, 2014.

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