If you want to protect your liver and avoid liver disease one of the best ways to do this is to avoid frequently drinking sugary beverages. This is what emerges from a very recent scientific research published in the JAMA journal thanks to the work of a team of American scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Zhao et al, JAMA, 2023).
Sugary drinks damage the liver, the studyThe study involved 100,000 postmenopausal women, all between the ages of 50 and 79 and recruited between 1993 and 1998. Study participants were asked to fill out questionnaires so to measure the intake of soft drinks with added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Then, the volunteers were followed up until 2020, in order to evaluate their state of health over the years and to relate it to their consumption of sweetened drinks. Well, what emerged was that those who had the habit of consuming at least one soft drink with added sugar every day had an 85% higher risk of developing cellular degeneration of the liver and a 68% higher risk of presenting chronic liver diseases, such as cirrhosis, fibrosis or chronic hepatitis, with a grave prognosis compared to those who consumed no more than three sugary drinks per month. No association was observed between chronic liver disease and beverages sweetened with artificial sweeteners.Conclusions, warnings and some ideasThe study did not investigate the mechanism by which sugary drinks increase the risk of liver disease and more work will need to be done to shed light on this aspect. However, it is believed that a role is played by the fact that sugary drinks increase insulin resistance and blood sugar, inflammation, overweight and obesity, all conditions associated with possible liver damage. Therefore, a good choice to keep the liver healthy is to avoid, or at least limit, sugary drinks, and this starting from all ages and for both sexes, even if the study focused only on menopausal women. Just because drinks sweetened with artificial sweeteners haven’t been shown to damage the liver doesn’t mean these drinks are healthy. On the contrary, more and more studies show that different types of artificial sweeteners can cause damage, increasing the risk of overweight, diabetes, cellular degeneration and impoverishing and unbalancing the intestinal microbiota. The best choice, when it comes to health, of the whole body and of the liver, is to opt for simple and pure drinks, such as water, tea, juices or centrifuges. And if the water gets tired, there are flavored waters, prepared by leaving to brew for a few hours in a carafe of water, covered with a lid and placed in the refrigerator, spices, such as cinnamon or ginger, aromatic herbs, such as mint, and lots of fruit cut into pieces, such as peaches, berries, pineapple or mango!
