by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola:
Story at-a-glance
- Sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to 338,240 deaths annually and contributed to 2.2 million new Type 2 diabetes cases in 2020, representing about 1 in 10 cases globally
- Sugary drinks cost the world 12.5 million healthy years of life in 2020 and are associated with 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases, or about 1 in 30 cases
- Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa face the highest health impacts, with some countries attributing nearly half of new diabetes cases to sugary drinks
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- Processed fructose, especially high-fructose corn syrup in sweetened beverages, overwhelms your liver, promotes fat storage and contributes to insulin resistance and fatty liver disease
- Unlike natural sugars in whole fruits, added fructose in drinks lacks fiber and nutrients, delivering a concentrated sugar load that disrupts metabolism and drives chronic disease
You grab a soda or energy drink without a second thought, but those tasty sips are hiding a big health bill. Most of these drinks are sweetened with refined fructose — typically in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) — which causes serious long-term health damage.
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are everywhere, and they’re causing trouble worldwide. If you want to stay well and avoid chronic disease, it’s important to understand how sugary drinks hurt your health, where they hit hardest and what you can do about it.
SSBs loaded with added sugar include things like sodas, energy drinks, fruit punches and sweetened lemonades. They’re not 100% fruit juices or iced tea with no sugar. Here’s a jaw-dropper: one can of soda packs 10 teaspoons of sugar.1 Picture dumping that into your morning tea. That’s way more sweetness than your body needs in one go.
Why Processed Fructose Is a Danger to Your Health
Not all sugars behave the same in your body — and fructose, when stripped from whole foods and concentrated in drinks or snacks, causes unique problems. Unlike natural fructose in fruit, which is slowly digested with the help of fiber and nutrients, processed fructose hits your system hard and fast. This sudden flood forces your liver to work overtime and sets off a cascade of stress responses throughout your body.
•Whole fruits are not the issue — When you eat fruit, the natural fructose is bundled with fiber, water and antioxidants. This slows down sugar absorption, which gives your body time to process it without stress.
•Processed fructose is a different story — In sugary drinks and many processed foods, fructose is separated from glucose and delivered in large amounts all at once. This includes sweeteners like HFCS.
•Your liver takes the hit — Unlike glucose, which is used by nearly every cell in your body, fructose is handled mainly by your liver. Too much fructose overwhelms it, forcing your liver to turn the excess into fat.
Over time, this leads to fatty liver disease, and a vicious cycle begins. When your liver is overloaded, it no longer regulates blood sugar or fats properly. This worsens insulin resistance — a key driver of Type 2 diabetes — and contributes to inflammation and metabolic disease.
•Processed fructose ramps up mitochondrial stress — Your mitochondria — the tiny energy factories in your cells — get overwhelmed by the byproducts of excess fructose. This creates what’s known as reductive stress, leaving your cells less able to make energy and more likely to get damaged.
The bottom line? It’s not just the sugar itself — it’s the form and source that matter. Fructose, when isolated and added to drinks and processed foods, pushes your liver and mitochondria past their limits, silently driving disease over time.
Why Should You Care?
SSBs (sugar-sweetened beverages) don’t just quench your thirst — they overload your body with sugar. It’s like piling extra bags onto a suitcase. At first, you might manage, but soon it’s too much to carry.
When that sugar is processed fructose, your liver ends up doing most of the heavy lifting. All that refined sugar makes you gain weight and raise your chances of serious health problems like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. These aren’t minor issues; they’re big deals that change your life.
