Common beverages with surprisingly high calorie counts.
What the evidence says
- Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption has increased globally in recent decades[1]
- Unlike solid food (118% compensation), liquid calories showed no compensatory reduction in subsequent intake — n = 15, soda against jelly beans, two four-week periods[2]
- SSBs associated with 26% greater risk of type 2 diabetes (RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.12–1.41) at highest against lowest intake, pooled ”based on data from eight prospective cohort studies (nine data points), including 310,819 participants and 15,043 cases of type 2 diabetes”. The review says the association is ”mediated in part by energy intake and adiposity”; about half is not in `clc03`’s full text, now held (corrected 2026-09-19 from ”pooled across 11 prospective cohort studies” and ”About half that association was mediated through obesity”)[3]
- In that trial the body did not offset liquid calories the way it offset solid ones — a behavioural result in fifteen people, not a demonstrated mechanism; nothing here measured why[2]
- In `clc01`’s 15-person trial, ”liquid carbohydrate promotes positive energy balance”, and body weight and BMI rose significantly only during the liquid period (scoped 2026-09-19 from ”Liquid calorie overconsumption leads to positive energy balance and weight gain”, stated generally; `clc02`, a review, discusses implications for energy balance but reports no trial of its own)[2]
- Meta-analysis of 32 studies (~203,000 participants): each daily SSB serving associated with 0.22 kg/year weight gain in adults (cohorts) and 0.85 kg gain in adult RCTs; in sensitivity analyses of trials in children, ”more pronounced benefits in preventing weight gain in SSB substitution trials (compared with school-based educational programs)” (corrected 2026-09-19 from ”education-only interventions not”: the review compares the two, it does not find education ineffective)[4]