Eating lots of sugar and sugar-sweetened foods could increase a person's likelihood of developing cancer of the pancreas, by far one of the deadliest types of cancer, Swedish researchers report.
Dr Susanna C. Larsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and her colleagues found that pancreatic cancer was significantly more likely to strike men and women who added the most sugar to their food and consumed the greatest quantities of soft drinks.
People who consumed two or more servings of soft drinks a day had a 93 percent greater risk of pancreatic cancer compared to those who abstained from these beverages. Eating sweetened fruit soups or stewed fruit increased risk by 51 percent. But there was no association between sweets, marmalade, or jams and pancreatic cancer risk, possibly because these foods are eaten less frequently and in smaller quantities, Larsson and her colleagues write.