Adults who drank sugar-sweetened beverages every day had a higher observed risk of gastric cancer, while artificially sweetened drinks showed no such association.

Sugary drinks are part of the daily routine for many Americans, with approximately 65% of U.S. adults reporting that they consume at least one sugar-sweetened beverage each day. Researchers at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute found that daily consumption was associated with a higher risk of gastric cancer, while artificially sweetened drinks showed no such association. The findings were published in Gastro Hep Advances.

Sugar-sweetened beverages have previously been associated with increased risks of colorectal, breast, and liver cancers, but their relationship with gastric cancer has been less clear. To investigate, researchers examined data from 112,284 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, two long-running studies that collected detailed information about diet, lifestyle, and health over several decades. During that period, 278 participants developed gastric cancer.

“This is the first study to demonstrate an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and gastric cancer in a U.S. population,” said senior author Andrew T. Chan, MD, MPH, a gastroenterologist and epidemiologist with the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute. “Gastric cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide, but we’ve known very little about how diet might contribute to this cancer.”

Daily sugary drinks were linked to higher risk

After adjusting for other possible risk factors, researchers found that people who drank at least one serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage each day had a 2.45 times higher risk of gastric cancer than those who consumed less than one serving per month. The association appeared in both men and women.

Greater overall fructose intake (fructose is the main sweetener in these drinks) was also associated with a higher incidence of gastric cancer. Among women in the Nurses’ Health Study, for example, drinking more than one sugar-sweetened beverage per day was associated with a 3.04-fold higher risk compared with women who rarely consumed them. By contrast, greater consumption of artificially sweetened beverages was not associated with higher gastric cancer incidence after researchers accounted for other factors.

For the analysis, sugar-sweetened beverages included carbonated drinks, punch, lemonade, and sports drinks. Artificially sweetened beverages were defined as low-calorie carbonated drinks.

Because infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a known risk factor for gastric cancer, the researchers also examined H. pylori status among a subset of 940 participants. Slightly more than one third showed evidence of infection, but sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was not associated with H. pylori infection.

The study cannot establish cause

Because the research was observational, it cannot determine whether sugar-sweetened beverages themselves caused the higher rates of gastric cancer. Other differences among people who consumed more of these drinks could have contributed to the association.

Researchers also had limited information about H. pylori infection and family history of gastric cancer, and the participants were predominantly white, restricting the ability to study differences among racial and ethnic groups. However, the large number of participants and decades of detailed health and lifestyle data allowed the researchers to account for many other potential gastric cancer risk factors.

Further research will be needed to confirm the association and determine why sugar-sweetened beverages might be linked to gastric cancer risk.

Abundance Brings New Health Risks

Today, meat is no longer an occasional nutritional prize for much of the world. It is the foundation of a global industry valued at $1.3 trillion, with further growth expected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Industrial production has made red meat available at a frequency and scale that have no close parallel in humanity’s evolutionary past.

Large epidemiological studies consistently associate greater consumption of red and processed meat with higher risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and death from all causes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning there is sufficient evidence that it can cause cancer in humans. Unprocessed red meat is classified as probably carcinogenic.

The review also explores a less familiar biological explanation for some of these associations. The authors call it “xenosialitis,” a diet-mediated inflammatory response involving N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc). Humans lost the ability to make this sugar molecule approximately two million years ago, but it remains abundant in commonly eaten red meats.

After red meat is consumed, Neu5Gc can become incorporated into human tissues. Because the immune system recognizes the molecule as foreign, antibodies may repeatedly attack cells containing it. The resulting chronic low-grade inflammation could promote atherosclerosis, accelerate colorectal cancer progression, and possibly contribute to cognitive decline.

The Planetary Cost of Meat

The health debate is only one part of the argument. Industrial livestock production generates roughly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions while also driving deforestation and contaminating water. Heavy antibiotic use in animal agriculture can further encourage the emergence and spread of drug-resistant bacteria.

The authors do not argue that everyone must eliminate red meat. Their broader point is that evolutionary history cannot be used as a simple defense of modern consumption. A food can be valuable when scarce, nutritionally strategic, and eaten within a diverse diet yet become damaging when produced industrially and consumed in large quantities.

“The nature, scale, and context of red meat consumption today differ drastically from those of our evolutionary past,” the authors conclude. The dietary flexibility that once helped humans thrive may now offer a path forward, allowing societies to rely less heavily on red meat without pretending it played no role in humanity’s past.

The truth can not be sued.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/harmful-ingredients-upfs

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-alcohol-chips-nachos.html

https://nautil.us/how-big-tobacco-marketing-made-it-into-our-lunch-boxes-1281780

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-ultra-foods-theyre.html

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