Sugary drinks may increase women's risk of mouth cancer

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-03-14 02:00

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Drinking a lot of sugary drinks may increase women's risk of mouth cancer, regardless of whether or not they smoke, according to US scientists. They looked at data on 162,602 women, 124 of whom developed mouth cancer over 30 years of follow-up. Overall, women who drank one or more sugary drinks per day were 4.87 times as likely to develop mouth cancer as those who consumed less than one a month, they say. That's equivalent to an extra three cases of mouth cancer per 100,000 people, they add. When heavy smokers were excluded, the increased risk from sugary drinks was even higher, with women who drank one or more per day at 5.46 times the risk of mouth cancer, compared with women who drank less than one per month. Although the increased risk is higher among light and non-smokers, crunching the numbers shows that this is also equivalent to an extra three cases of mouth cancer per 100,000 people. The findings may reveal a previously unknown cause of mouth cancer in women, the researchers say, and further studies should look to see if the same is true among men.