Two colas a week could double the risk of pancreatic cancer

Researchers followed more than 60,000 people for 14 years to uncover the risks associated with the consumption of sweetened carbonated drinks and found that just two cans of any sugary soft drink per week could double the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

People who had fruit juices in place of soda-drinks did not face any such risk of cancer.

Blame the sugar
According to Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, the lead author of the study, sugar may be to blame for the raised risk of cancer in people who have high consumption of soft drinks, but he also said that such individuals usually also have poor health habits otherwise.

"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," he said.

Pancreas are responsible for the production of insulin—the hormone that is responsible for metabolizing the sugar in our body.

According to the American Cancer Society, Pancreatic cancer is among the most fatal forms of the disease and most people die within five years of the diagnosis.

60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study were part of the study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

In the time period of 14 years, 140 of the volunteers developed pancreatic cancer. The participants who had two or more soft drinks per week had 87 percent higher risk of getting pancreatic cancer, as compared to those who did not consume sweetened drinks.

The West could show similar findings
Though the study was conducted in Singapore, Pereira believed that the findings of the study would apply in other places as well.

"Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries," he said.

Too small to apply to all?
However, Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University in Connecticut was not ready to agree with it immediately.

"Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not," said Mayne, who is associated with a journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

"Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for."