Sugar and fizzy drinks linked to pancreatic cancer

Swedish research has linked the risk of developing cancer of the pancreas to the consumption of sugar and fizzy drinks.

The researchers at the Karolinska Institute say that people who drink large quantities of fizzy drinks or add sugar to coffee or tea run a higher risk of developing cancer of the pancreas.

The team reached this conclusion after studying the diets of almost 80,000 men and women between 1997 and 2005.

Of that number a total of 131 developed pancreatic cancer, a deadly form of the disease that is difficult to treat.

The researchers say the risk of developing pancreatic cancer is related to the amount of sugar in the diet.

In the study the people who drank fizzy or syrup-based drinks twice a day were found to have a 90 percent higher risk of getting cancer of the pancreas than those who never drank them.

The risk was 70 percent higher for those who added sugar to their drinks about five times a day, and 50 percent for those eating creamed fruit, a sugary, fruit-based Swedish dessert, at least once a day.

Susanna Larsson, from the department of environmental medicine at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, says even though the chances of developing pancreatic cancer are relatively small, it is important to learn more about the risk factors behind the disease.

Figures suggest that about 216,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer, mostly in developed countries, are diagnosed each year.

The illness commonly appears in people over 60 and is difficult to treat because it is often not diagnosed until it has spread beyond the pancreas.

Almost all the 7,000 people who get pancreatic cancer annually in the UK die shortly after diagnosis, partly because the symptoms are spotted too late.

Smoking is thought to be one of the biggest triggers for pancreatic cancer.

Tumours are also hard to detect because the pancreas is buried deep in the body.

Only two per cent of patients are alive five years after first being treated, although surgery followed by chemotherapy can increase survival rates.

Larsson believes it is perhaps the most serious form of cancer, with very poor prognoses for its victims and it is important that we learn how to prevent it.

The research is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.