Sweetened beverages may increase liver cancer and fatal liver disease risk

1. The liver is a vital organ of the body, helping with metabolism and removing dangerous substances from the blood. Damage to the liver can be detrimental to the body’s health. 2. Researchers are still seeking to understand what factors can increase people’s risk for liver problems, such as chronic liver conditions and liver cancer. 3. Data from a recent study found that higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was associated with an increased risk of liver cancer and death from chronic liver disease in women at the postmenopausal stage.

Sugar-sweetened beverages and liver health

This study looked at the relationship between consuming sugar-sweetened beverages and how it relates to liver cancer and chronic liver disease mortality.

The study included almost 99,000 women at the postmenopausal stage, and researchers were able to look at long-term data, following up with participants an average of a little over 20 years later. Researchers used data from a large prospective study called the Women’s Health Initiative.

Participants provided information on their intake of sugary soft drinks and fruit drinks, excluding fruit juice. Their intake of artificially sweetened drinks was recorded at a 3-year follow-up.

Based on their answers, researchers divided participants into one of three groups:

• 3 or fewer servings per month, including no consumption
• between 1 and 6 servings a week
• 1 or more servings a day.

Over the follow-up, researchers looked at the incidence of liver cancer and death from chronic liver disease. They accounted for several covariates, including smoking status, body mass index (BMI), and level of physical activity.

The study found that participants who consumed one or more sugar-sweetened beverages daily were at a higher risk for developing liver cancer and death from chronic liver disease compared to participants who consumed three or fewer sugar-sweetened beverages a month.

However, they found that participants who consumed artificially-sweetened beverages were not at an increased risk for liver cancer or death from chronic liver disease.

Study authors Dr. Longgang Zhao, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Xuehong Zhang, associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist at the Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital explained to Medical News.

Dr. David A. Gerber, a surgeon and Chief of Abdominal Transplant Surgery at UNC School of Medicine who was not involved in the recent study, commented on the findings for MNT.

"My takeaway is that our diet plays a major role in our overall health; most people don’t think about sugary intake and liver disease; they focus on obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc.," he told us. "That is probably because we haven’t done a good job educating the public about the role of metabolic liver disease.

Liver cancer and chronic liver disease: The liver (trusted source) helps to process substances that come into the body. It helps the body keep what is useful and remove substances that are toxic. It also helps metabolize nutrients like fat, carbohydrates, and proteins.

Because of the liver’s central role, damage to the liver can lead to poor health outcomes. Damage to the liver can take many forms and vary in severity.

"Chronic liver disease is a very serious disease, and it is broken down into subcategories of fibrosis—eearly scarring of the liver—tto the advanced stage of chronic liver disease called cirrhosis," Dr. Gerber told MNT.

"Cirrhosis is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity across the world, which many people, including physicians, don’t realize. Roughly 1.3 million people die annually secondary to cirrhosis," he noted.

Similarly, liver cancer can also be highly detrimental. Certain risk factors increase someone’s chances of developing liver cancer, such as high alcohol use, obesity, or having type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Gerber further explained that "[w]hen the medical community talks about liver cancer in the setting of chronic liver disease, they are referring to primary liver cancer (cancer that arises in the liver) rather than metastatic cancer (cancer in some other organ that spreads to the liver)."

"Primary liver cancer occurs because of chronic injury to the liver, and its incidence goes up with every year that someone has chronic liver disease," he added.

Research about how people can decrease their risk of liver problems is ongoing.