On Monday, while reporting a new study, scientists reported that people who consume two or more sweetened soft drinks per week face a much higher risk of contracting pancreatic cancer, a rare but highly deadly cancer form. The same risk, however, is not faced by people who consumed mostly fruit juice, as was discovered by the study which involved 60,000 people and was carried out in Singapore.

Study leader Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota feels that sugar seems to be the main culprit to be blamed and people who consume excess of sugary soft drinks also face other health issues.

"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.

For the sake of study, researchers analyzed 60,524 men and women for 14 long years in the Singapore Chinese Health Study, and discovered that those volunteers who drank two or more sweetened drinks a week were at 87% more risk of developing cancer of the pancreas.

Details of the study have been published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.