Sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages and natural juices and risk of inflammatory bowel disease: a cohort study of 121,490 participants.

BACKGROUND

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) have been related to high-sugar dietary patterns, but the associations of different types of beverages with IBD risk are largely unknown.

AIMS

To examine any associations between intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages and natural juices and IBD risk METHODS: This cohort study included 121,490 participants in the UK Biobank who were free of IBD at recruitment. Intake of beverages was obtained from repeated 24-h diet recalls in 2009-2012. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations of beverage intake with IBD risk.

RESULTS

During a mean (standard deviation) follow-up of 10.2 (1.5) years, we documented 510 incident IBD cases, (143 Crohn's disease (CD) and 367 ulcerative colitis (UC)). Compared to non-consumers, participants consuming >1 unit per day of sugar-sweetened beverages were at significantly higher risk of IBD (HR 1.51, 95% CI 1.11-2.05), but the trend was non-significant (p-trend = 0.170). This association was significant for CD (HR 2.05, 95% CI 1.22-3.46), but not for UC (HR 1.31, 95% CI 0.89-1.92). We did not observe significant associations for the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages or natural juices.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest an association between consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, rather than artificially sweetened beverages or natural juices, and IBD risk.