Research
Energy balance
Consuming sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is causally associated with greater long-term weight gain and increased risk of obesity, whereas substituting SSBs with water, coffee, or diet beverages mitigates this gain.
To prevent weight gain, reduce your intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juices. Try replacing one serving of these drinks daily with water, black coffee, or diet beverages. This simple swap is associated with significantly less weight gain over time.
StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
increasing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) or fruit juice intake was associated with greater weight gain, and decreasing consumption with less weight gain... Substituting water or coffee for SSBs was associated with an average 0.5-kilogram smaller weight gain.
Why this rating
Based on large prospective cohort studies (NHS, NHS II, HPFS) with long follow-up (up to 16-26 years) and high follow-up rates (>90%).
Source
Determinants and Consequences of Obesity
Adela Hruby et al. · American Journal of Public Health · 2016
DOI 10.2105/ajph.2016.303326
narrative_review · n=238372Cited 745×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Excess body weight and weight gain are strongly associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and premature mortality, even within the 'normal' BMI range.Strong
- Higher genetic predisposition to obesity, measured by BMI-related loci, interacts with lifestyle factors (specifically SSB intake, fried food, and sedentary behavior) to exponentially increase obesity risk, but healthy lifestyle choices can attenuate this genetic risk.Good
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