Sacramento Health & Fitness Blog: For Weight Loss, Watch What You Drink

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Sacramento Health & Fitness Blog

Presenting the latest research on health issues and fitness trends in the region and the nation.

April 2, 2009

For Weight Loss, Watch What You Drink

Coke or Pepsi?

Uh, try water or unsweetened iced tea instead.

Beverages, not necessarily food, are what can really lead to packing on the pounds.

That's the result of a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study released today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that sugar-sweetened beverages (regular soft drinks, fruit drinks, fruit punch, or high-calorie beverages sweetened with sugar) are the main culprits, not the diet drinks.

As Johns Hopkins researcher Dr. Benjamin Caballero said in the journal, "A reduction in liquid calorie intake was associated with a weight loss of 0.25 kg at 6 months and 0.24 kg at 18 months. Among sugar-sweetened beverages, a reduction of 1 serving was associated with a weight loss of 0.5 kg at 6 months and 0.7 kg at 18 months. Of the seven types of beverages examined, sugar-sweetened beverages were the only beverages significantly associated with weight change."

Those seven beverage types included the aforementioned sugar-sweetened and diet drinks, plus milk, juice, coffee and tea with and without sugar and alcoholic beverages.

The result: At 37 percent, sugar-sweetened beverages were the leading source of liquid calories.

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