Trouble For Coke And Pepsi? Sugary Drinks May Increase Cancer Risk

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 8, 5:43AM EST

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Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of the disease. The American Cancer Associate says that the five-year survival rate for the condition is only 5%.

New research by the Singapore Chinese Health Study published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention showed that regular soda drinkers had an 87% higher chance of getting the cancer than people who drank fruit juice, according to Reuters. The researchers followed 60,000 people over 14 years.

Some experts who reviewed the study said the sample size may be too low for the research to be conclusive, but if follow-up surveys support the case, makers of soft drinks, particularly Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Pepsi (NYSE:PEP) face a challenge.

Coke and Pepsi already battle the perception that some of their drinks help increase the rate of obesity, which leads to its own list of health problems. As Western governments, especially the US, try to combat their overweight populations products from fast food chains including McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) and Burger King (NYSE:BKS) have been singled out for serving unhealthy food and drink.

But, pancreatic cancer is a health risk of a different sort. Almost everyone who gets it dies.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.