Adding sugar to your tea and coffee: Does it impact your health and mortality

In a world where coffee and tea are beloved beverages, sugar is often the chosen companion to sweeten the experience. But just how does adding sugar to your daily brew affect your health and, ultimately, your mortality? A recent study from the Copenhagen Male Study aimed to uncover the truth. The study, which included 2,923 men aged around 63 years showed that adding sugar to coffee or tea was not significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality or incident diabetes in a population of Danish men.

Over a remarkable 32-year follow-up period, 88.3% of the participants succumbed to various causes, with 34.5% of them reporting the addition of sugar to their daily cups of coffee and tea. The researchers then meticulously analyzed the data, considering several factors such as age, smoking status, daily alcohol intake, blood pressure, body mass index, daily consumption of coffee or tea, and socioeconomic status.

The results of the study may come as a surprise. Adding sugar to coffee and tea did not show a significant association with increased all-cause mortality or the development of diabetes mellitus. The hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in the sugar group compared to the non-sugar group suggests no substantial difference between the two groups.

The findings regarding cardiovascular mortality, cancer mortality, and the incidence of diabetes mellitus were also noteworthy. The hazard ratios for these outcomes, while slightly higher for the sugar group, did not reach statistical significance.

Reference: Use of sugar in coffee and tea and long-term risk of mortality in older adult Danish men: 32 years of follow-up from a prospective cohort study Roderick W. Treskes et al, Published: October 18, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292882