Drinking plain water instead of fruit juice and fizzy drinks lowers the risk of developing diabetes in women, revealed a study by the Harvard School of Public Health. Replacing sweet drinks with water could fend off the cardio metabolic disorder. However, addition of water to sugary drinks, which an individual drinks throughout the day, would not make any difference.
For their study Dr Frank Hu and colleagues composed statistics from the massive Nurses Health Study that tracked the health and lifestyle of more than eighty thousand of women across the US, for more than a decade. All the study participants were questioned about their diet and health. Over the study period about twenty-seven hundred women developing diabetes.
They found that the amount of water women drank did not appear to influence their risk of diabetes. Women who drank more than six cups a day had the analogous risk to women who drank less than one cup a day. But, intake of fruit juice and sugar-sweetened drinks were associated with higher risk of diabetes.
They anticipated that if women replaced one cup of fruit juice or fizzy drink with one cup of plain water, then their risk of diabetes would drop by seven to eight percent. The study also found that tea or unsweetened coffee might be a good alternative to sugary beverages.
They estimated that replacing one cup of a carbonated drink or fruit juice with one cup of coffee or tea could diminish diabetes risk by twelve to seventeen percent. Lead author Dr Hu stated the study is important in pointing out that fruit juice is not an optimal substitute for soda or other sugar-sweetened drinks.
The reality is that those juices contain the same amount of calories and sugar as soft drinks. The bottom line is that plain water is one of the best calorie-free choices for drinks, and if the water is too plain, you can add a squeeze of lemon or lime. The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.