Sugar Sweetened Beverages and Cancer: A Brief Review

Abstract

Cancer is the leading cause of about 8.8 million deaths in the world. Thus, preventive strategies such as healthy diets are important in cancer control plan. The aim of current review is to investigate the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and cancer risk. A systematic search was conducted in the electronic databases including Scopus, PubMed Cochrane, ISI and Google before February 2017 Human studies were considered to be eligible for inclusion if they were of any design and the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and cancer risk was assessed among adults. From the total number of 152 articles obtained at the initial search, 13 publications consisting of 7 cohorts and 6 case-control studies were eligible. Although, 2 of cohort and 2 of case-control studies revealed a significant association between sugar-sweetened beverages and cancer risk, others could not show the adverse effects of such beverages on cancer risk. Overall the current findings are not sufficient to assess the mentioned risk. Consequently, more prospective cohort studies with adequate sample size are necessary in developed and developing countries.