Americans are sweet on sweetened drinks such as soda, fruit drinks, sports/energy drinks, and sweetened coffees and teas. The daily consumption of those liquid "health bombs" ranges from 44.5% of adults in Alaska to 76.4% of adults in Hawaii, according to the American Heart Association.
And that increases the risk of everything from obesity to diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, liver and kidney disease, and depression. But that's not all.
According to a new study in JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery that looked at 30 years of data on more than 160,000 women, drinking one or more sugar-sweetened beverages a day boosts the risk of oral cavity cancers by a whopping 487%.
Does this mean you should make a switch to beverages artificially sweetened with saccharin, aspartame, or sucralose? Sorry, but no.
Studies show that they can cause gastrointestinal woes, change your perception of tastes, trigger metabolic changes that increase the risk for diabetes, and damage heart health. The "fake" sugars can also stimulate your appetite and, ironically, contribute to weight gain and obesity.
Your best options are hot or cold filtered black coffee (including decaf), unsweetened teas (green, black, and herbal), smoothies sweetened with fresh fruit, water with citrus juice, and tasty vegetable broth.
For more information on how (and why) to eliminate added sugars and syrups from your diet, and great recipes for healthy beverages check out the recipes for "The Grape Escape" and "Vitality Smoothie" in "The What to Eat When Cookbook."