Popular childhood drinks may raise blood pressure decades later
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- Researchers analyzing data from 25,749 participants in the Growing Up Today Study found those who consumed two or more daily servings of sugar-sweetened beverages had a 52% higher risk of developing high blood pressure later in life, compared with those drinking fewer than three servings per week.
- Sugar-sweetened beverages showed type-specific risk in the study: each daily serving of soda was linked to a 23% higher hypertension risk, while each daily serving of sports drinks was tied to a 36% higher risk.
- Fruit juice also carried elevated risk at higher intake levels — participants drinking 1.5 or more servings daily had a 35% higher risk, and orange juice specifically was associated with a 20% higher risk per daily serving, while apple juice showed no comparable increase.
- Substitution models suggested replacing one daily sugary drink with whole fruit was associated with a 22% lower hypertension risk, replacing fruit juice with whole fruit with a 19% lower risk, and replacing sugary drinks with milk or water with up to a 13% lower risk — though swapping fruit juice for milk or water showed no significant change.
- The study's source-of-sugar finding challenges the assumption that fructose is uniformly harmful regardless of origin: whole fruit did not increase risk, while sugary drinks and fruit juice did, according to American Heart Association volunteer expert Amit Khera.
- Study limitations noted by the authors include reliance on self-reported blood pressure diagnoses, a participant pool that was 96% non-Hispanic White, and the observational design — meaning causation cannot be confirmed, though researchers flagged that Black and Hispanic Americans, who consume the most sugary drinks, were underrepresented and may face even higher relevance.
- The research, led by senior author Vasanti Malik of the University of Toronto and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation and reinforces the AHA's 2026 dietary guidance urging minimized added sugar intake.
Why it matters: Childhood is the leverage point — the 52% hypertension risk jump at just two daily sugary drinks gives parents and pediatricians a concrete, actionable threshold rather than vague guidance to "drink less soda." For the 96%-White study cohort, the finding that orange juice specifically carried risk also undercuts the common perception of fruit juice as a healthy default for kids.
