Replacing Just One Sugary Drink With Water Could Improve Health

According to the CDC, close to one third of Americans drink soda or another sugar-heavy drink every day. A recent study suggests that replacing just one sugary drink with water can reduce calorie intake from drinks by 6% and possibly help with weight loss.

For this study, researchers used data from the 2007-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys, which catalogued the daily dietary intake of Americans age 19 and older. They modeled the effect of replacing one eight-ounce sugar-sweetened drink with an eight-ounce serving of water.

The researchers found that calorie-intake from drinks was reduced from 17% to 11%. They also found that replacing one sugary drink with water was associated with improved individual scores on the Healthy Beverage Index, which measures diet patterns and how they relate to diet and health.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted the study. It was published on June 28, 2016, in the journal Nutrients.

Previous studies suggest that increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is playing a role in the obesity epidemic in the US. Obesity increases the risk of adverse health conditions such as heart disease and stroke, type-2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and osteoarthritis.