Research
Energy balance
Consuming an additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is associated with significantly increased risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, and stroke, but has among the lowest environmental impacts.
Limit or eliminate daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. This is linked to higher risks of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. While SSBs have low environmental impact, their health risks are significant. Replace with water, unsweetened tea, or coffee.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is associated with a significant increase in CHD, type II diabetes, and stroke... sugar-sweetened beverages consistently have among the lowest environmental impacts for all indicators
Why this rating
Based on dose-response meta-analyses, but limited to specific health outcomes (no mortality or colorectal cancer association found).
Source
Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
Michael Clark et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2019
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1906908116
Meta-analysis · 19 studiesCited 826×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Consuming an additional daily serving of minimally processed plant-based foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, olive oil) is associated with significantly reduced risk of mortality and chronic diseases (CHD, diabetes, stroke, colorectal cancer) and has among the lowest environmental impacts.Strong
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