A study published in the Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention journal, has revealed that people who drink sugar-sweetened carbonated drinks are 87% likelier to develop pancreatic cancer than those who don’t.

“Soft drinks are linked with a higher risk of pancreatic cancer, which may be working through effects of the hormone insulin. We believe that because Singaporean adults have a lot of the same mannerisms as Western countries, which are at tendency to eat fast food and also go shopping, one could say that these findings may be generalizable to other Western countries”, said Noel Mueller, lead Author of the study.

The study was a collaboration between the University of Minnesota and National University of Singapore, which begun in 1993. It evaluated 60,524 men and women who enrolled in the Singapore Chinese Health Study, for up to
14 years.

The beverage industry has taken an exception to the study. The industrial players claim that the research has overlooked various other studies, which found no association between soda consumption and pancreatic cancer.

Some other researchers are not completely convinced by the conclusions drawn in this study, as they believe that individuals consuming soda would have other issues that may also predispose the consumer to pancreatic cancer.