What is worse soda or orange juice?

• A new study published in JAMA Network found that each 12-ounce daily serving of fruit juice is associated with a 24% higher mortality risk. Juice was more hazardous than other sweet drinks, researchers discovered. Each 12-ounce daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages — like soda and non-juice drinks — was linked to an 11% higher mortality risk.
• Researchers could not make similar connections between sugary beverage consumption and death from coronary heart disease, saying longer-term research was needed to draw any sort of conclusion.
• The study was conducted by researchers from Cornell University, Emory University and the University of Alabama who observed 13,440 adults 45 and older for an average of six years. The data was analyzed from November 2017 to December 2018. 

This is the latest study that warns against the potential dangers of juices and sugary drinks. The American Academy of Pediatrics already recommends children younger than 1 not be given fruit juice because of its high sugar content. Also, recent Consumer Reports tests showed elevated levels of heavy metals in 21 of 45 different juices tested.

Consumers have become more concerned about sugar consumption in recent years, and this study validates their apprehension. According to this study, the nutrient content of 100% fruit juices and sugar-sweetened beverages is very similar. While juice has vitamins and phytonutrients that sugar-sweetened beverages don't, sugar and water are the main ingredients in both, and the biochemical response when they are metabolized is the same. Linking both juices and sugary beverages to increased risk of death is a way to worry both consumers and the juice industry.

The study used data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, which enrolled participants from 2003 to 2007 and conducted follow-ups every six months through 2013. The research pointed out the study's strengths and weaknesses. While the data from the REGARDS study used a validated dietary assessment instrument, breaking out this part of the study included only a small number of participants who died during the relatively short follow-up period. The data was also limited by participants reporting their own beverage consumption — and their inability to estimate how much they drank of all types of sugary beverages, including sweetened teas.

The industry has already started to come out against the results. The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency that oversees marketing, research and regulation of the state's citrus fruits, found several limitations, according to Food Business News. The agency said the group studied was rather homogenous, being mainly white men who were obese and overweight. The study focused on 12-ounce servings, while consumers looking at 100% fruit juice labels see information broken down for 8-ounce servings. The dietary data was also only collected once.

The department also noted that other research has shown no association between drinking 100% orange juice and health problems such as being overweight or obese, and orange juice provides vitamins and minerals.

"Suggesting that a higher consumption of 100% fruit juice is associated with an increase in all causes of mortality without acknowledging the limitations of the study leads to confusion and conflicting messages for consumers," the department told Food Business News. 

Different study results and interpretations could confuse consumers who prefer healthier beverages and aren't clear whether fruit juice fits the bill. It may help them figure it out when the FDA's added sugar information requirements on Nutrition Facts panels officially kicks in, or if the agency ever redefines what the term "healthy" means. However, those won't be perfect measures either, since 100% juice will still have a high sugar content, but no added sugars.

While research like this can inspire reformulation, there's not much that 100% juice products can do to change. If more in the juice industry agree with the shortcomings called out by the Florida Department of Citrus, it may make sense for researchers and industry to quickly put together another study specifically targeting juice's impact on health before this report can do much damage to the total market.

Photo: Stockbyte/Getty Images

When fruit is stripped of its skin, pulp, flesh and other fibrous parts, it's distilled down to its sweet essence. That means that orange juice has roughly the same amount of sugar as the demon of the nutritional world, soda—about 5 to 8 teaspoons per cup. Add to this: the sugar in pure, natural juice and the sugar in sweetened beverages are both densely packed with calories, says Naveed Sattar, MD, PhD, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow. In a recent article in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal, Sattar points out that eating whole fruit is associated with a reduced (or neutral) risk of diabetes, but drinking fruit juice is associated with an increased risk.
The marquee vitamin in orange juice, vitamin C, is good for your immune system, and it's an antioxidant that protects cells from free radicals. But some of its benefits are overrated: No studies have been able to conclude that vitamin C helps cure colds. Further, you may not realize that the information on the label of your store-bought juice (even not-from-concentrate brands) refers to the amount of vitamin C that was present when the product was packaged, explains Alissa Hamilton, PhD, a former Food and Society Policy Fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the author of Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice. All juice loses nutrients over time (that's why the people at the juice bar urge you to drink their blends ASAP), and modern storage technology has radically extended the shelf life of mass-market juices. For example, today’s more efficient mode of storage is to strip the liquid of oxygen and then keep it in million-gallon tanks. The juice can remain in those tanks for upwards of a year. Then after it goes into the carton, it can sit on a truck, in a supermarket, and in your fridge, steadily losing vitamins.
When juice is processed and treated for storage, it inevitably loses flavor. To remedy this, Hamilton says that big juice manufacturers work with chemical companies to come up with "flavor packs" that make the juice taste like the beverage we know and love —those are added to the juice before it's packaged for sale. The chemicals in the flavor packs are essences and oils found naturally in oranges, but they don't necessarily come from the same oranges that are in that carton of juice. Hamilton discovered that some of the flavor-makers are known to source their ingredients from countries like Brazil, which has different restrictions and pesticide controls than we have in the U.S.
With its links to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and gout and its utter lack of nutrients, soda is still worse for you than orange juice. The problem comes when non-soda drinkers swap out all their fruit or water for juice, an increasingly common diet habit. "People know that soda is bad for them, but I had one patient in my clinic drinking 2 liters of orange juice a day thinking he was getting all these health benefits, all while gaining weight, causing liver problems and increasing his risk of diabetes," says Sattar. He urges people to drink fruit juice sparingly.

Published 04/28/2014

Unless you live in a nutrition-deprived cave, you probably know that soda isn’t great for your body. But why isn’t there the same outrage against fruit juices as there is against our favorite fizzy drinks?

Fruit juices contain artificial “flavor packs” and are loaded with sugar and calories. Even if the sugar in fruit is fructose, which is naturally occurring, it’s still harmful to your body when in juice form. Also, refined sugars may still be added to fruit juices (your glass of lemonade didn’t get that sweet without a little help). You can read more about the many horrors of fruit juices in this article.

To help you visualize the unhealthy similarities between fruit juice and soda, here’s a list comparing 12 fruit juices and sodas against each other:

1. Welch’s Grape Juice vs. Mountain Dew

Welch’s photo courtesy of @ohanafoodshop on Instagram | Mountain Dew photo courtesy of @Thomas Hawk on Flickr

Welch’s Grape Juice has a whopping amount of sugar, around two grams more than Mountain Dew, one of the most sugar-filled sodas you can buy. It also clocks in eight more calories.

2. Simply Lemonade vs. Fanta

Simply Lemonade photo courtesy of wikipedia.org | Fanta photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Fanta may have more calories, but Simply Lemonade still has an insane amount of sugar.

3. Ocean Spray Cherry Juice vs. Pepsi

Pepsi photo courtesy of @Matt Green on Flickr | Ocean Spray photo courtesy of @chaeeun.hong on Instagram

While both still have a similarly high sugar content, Ocean Spray’s Cherry Juice has more calories.

4. Minute Maid Apple Juice vs. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola photo courtesy of @Oleg Sklyanchuk on Flickr | Minute Maid photo courtesy of @staygorgeousx3 on Instagram

Basically the same sugar content, but there are more calories in this nostalgic fruit drink.

5. Dole Pineapple Juice vs. Dr. Pepper

Dole photo courtesy of @Mike Mozart on Flickr | Dr. Pepper photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Same story, different characters. This pineapple juice has the same sugar content as Dr. Pepper, but has more calories.

6. Tropicana Orange Juice vs. Sprite

Tropicana photo courtesy of @locosoho on vimeo | Sprite photo courtesy of @javier_boselli on Instagram

Sprite has almost two grams more sugar than this household favorite, but Tropicana’s Orange Juice has almost six more calories for every 100ml.

This listicle is just a microcosm of your supermarket shelf. The dangerous effects of consuming an excessive amount of sugar are too important to be skimmed over in this listicle, but I’ve discussed the topic more in this article. It’s also important to note that because soda also contains high fructose corn syrup, it still is an overall more unhealthy drink. However, juices have an aura of health around them that makes them dangerous, because we’re more likely to consume fruit juices more frequently and in excess.

Hopefully this list will make you think twice before reaching for that huge jug of orange juice during your next shopping trip.