Two sugary drinks a day increases chance of bowel cancer in women under 50, study finds

A new study has concluded that drinking two or more sugary beverages per day increases the chance of developing bowel cancer in women under 50.

A team of researchers in the US examined data collected as part of the Nurses Health Study, which tracks the health and lifestyle choices of nurses and healthcare workers over time, and published their findings in the industry journal Gut.

The study recorded the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages on more than 95,000 women who reported their consumption levels every four years, with 41,000 also supplying data of their sugary drink consumption in adolescence.

The researchers discovered 109 cases of early-onset bowel cancer among its participants, leading them to conclude that, compared with people who drank less than one sugar-sweetened beverage each week, women who drank more than two a day had a 2.2-fold higher risk of developing early bowel cancer.

Each serving per day carried a 16 per cent higher risk of the disease.

But, in more positive news, replacing sugar-sweetened drinks with an artificially-sweetened alternative or with coffee or milk indicated a lower risk.

“Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption may contribute to the rising incidence of early onset colorectal cancer,” the researchers wrote.

“Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage intake and/or replacing sugar-sweetened beverages with other healthier beverages among adolescents and young adults may serve as a potential actionable strategy to alleviate the growing burden of early onset colorectal cancer.”

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, with more than 42,000 people diagnosed with the condition every year or 115 new cases every day.

The majority of cases, more than nine in 10, occur in people over the age of 50, with around six in 10 occurring in people over the age of 70, although it can affect individuals at any age.

Technology employed in the detection of the condition is developing all the time, however, and it was reported in March that tiny, pill-sized cameras that can be swallowed and used to take images inside the body to check for cancer were being sent to 11,000 NHS patients across England in a bid to spot it early.

A simpler alternative to traditional endoscopy, the measure was intended to help UK hospitals address the backlog of appointments that developed as a result of cancellations caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The NHS continues to face huge queues for diagnostic testing and referrals from GPs as result of the crisis, sparking concerns there could be significant numbers of undiagnosed cancers among the public.

The latest data for December 2020 showed 350,000 patients in England were waiting more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test such as an endoscopy, compared to December 2019 when there were just 41,906 patients waiting longer than six weeks.