A recent study has discovered that high intake of simple sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soda, during adolescence appears to contribute to a heightened risk of conventional adenoma especially rectal adenoma.
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| Photo: Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB) | InStyleHealth |
What is an adenoma?
Adenoma is a type of
non-cancerous tumor or benign that may affect various organs of the body. Every
cell in our body has a closely regulated system that orders when it needs to
grow, mature, and eventually dies. Tumors and cancers occur when cells lose
their control and divide and propagate erratically.
Experts have examined the effect of consuming simple
sugar (e.g., fructose, glucose, added sugar, total sugar) and SSB on the occurrence
of colorectal cancer (CRC) precursors in 33,106 volunteers of the Nurses’
Health Study II who provided adolescent dietary information in 1998. All
subjects consequently underwent lower gastrointestinal endoscopy between 1999
and 2015.
There was a total of 2,909 conventional adenomas, 758
were high risk and 2,355 serrated lesions were recorded over the follow-up
period. The average age at diagnoses was 52.2 years old.
Utilizing multivariate logistic regression for
clustered data, it revealed that high sugar and SSB consumption during adolescence
had a positive correlation with the risk of adenoma but not serrated lesions.
Particularly, each 5% increment in calorie/day of total fructose intake showed
a 17 to 30% increase in the risks of total adenoma and high-risk adenoma.
Analyzing subgroup by subsite, each 5% increment in
calorie/day of total fructose intake increased the risk of proximal, distal,
and rectal adenoma.
However, every 1 serving/day increment in SSB intake
increased the risk of total adenoma by 11% and of rectal adenoma by 30%.
On the other hand, sugar and SSB intake during
adulthood did not influence adenoma risk. For complete details of the study,
click here.
Source: Gastroenterology 2021;doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2021.03.028