Drinking sugary drinks could be causing nearly 8,000 cases of type 2 diabetes a year, according to research. A study led by the University of Cambridge found sugar-sweetened drinks could give rise to 1.8 million diabetes cases over 10 years in the US and 79,000 in the UK.

Academics analysed studies carried out in both the US and UK as they had the most data available, and found sugar-sweetened beverages were consumed by 54.4 per cent and 49.4 per cent of people in each country respectively.

They concluded that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages may be linked to two to six per cent of type 2 diabetes cases in the UK, and four to13 per cent in the US. This was independent of individuals’ obesity status.

Sugar-sweetened beverages were defined as any sweetened beverages, including sugar-sweetened fruit juice, not presented as diet or non-caloric beverages. Artificially sweetened beverages included low-caloric soft drinks, while fruit juice was defined as 100 per cent fruit juice, or fruit juice assessed separately from fruit drinks.

Although artificially-sweetened beverages and fruit juice also showed positive associations with incidence of type 2 diabetes, researchers said these findings were likely to involve bias.

However, they added that both artificially- sweetened beverages and fruit juice were unlikely to be healthy alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages for the prevention of type 2 diabetes.