The highest level of evidence from systematic review s and meta-analyses of controlled trials has not shown that fructose-containing sugars behave any differently from other forms of digestible carbohydrates .
Fructose-containing sugars can only lead to weight gain and other unintended harms on cardiometabolic risk factors insofar as the excess calories they provide .
Prospect i ve cohort studies , which provide the strongest observational evidence , have shown an association between fructose-containing sugars and cardiometabolic risk including weight gain , cardiovascular disease outcomes and diabetes only when restricted to sugar-sweetened beverages and not for sugars from other sources .
In fact , sugar-sweetened beverages are a marker of an unhealthy lifestyle and their drinkers consume more calories , exercise less , smoke more and have a poor dietary pattern .
Fructose-containing sugars are a focus of attention as a public health target for their putative role in obesity and cardiometabolic disease including diabetes .
The fructose moiety is singled out to be the primary driver for the harms of sugars due to its unique endocrine signal and pathophysiological role .
However , this is only supported by ecological studies , animal models of overfeeding and select human intervention studies with supraphysiological doses or lack of control for energy .
Association of Sweetened Beverage Intake with Incident Hypertension
BACKGROUND Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages ( SSBs ) is associated with an increased risk of hypertension  in cross-sectional studies . However , prospect i ve data are limited . OBJECTIVE To examine the associations between SSBs and artificially sweetened beverages ( ASBs ) with incident hypertension . DESIGN AND SETTING Prospect i ve analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression to examine the association between SSBs and ASBs with incident hypertension in three large , prospect i ve cohorts , the Nurses ' Health Studies I ( n = 88,540 women ) and II ( n = 97,991 women ) and the Health Professionals ' Follow-Up Study ( n = 37,360 men ) . MEASUREMENTS Adjusted hazard ratios for incident clinical ly diagnosed hypertension . RESULTS Higher SSB  and ASB intake was associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension in all three cohorts . In a pooled analysis , participants who consumed at least one SSB daily had an adjusted HR for incident hypertension of 1.13 ( 95 % CI , 1.09–1.17 ) compared with those who did not consume SSBs ; for persons who drank at least one ASB daily , the adjusted HR was 1.14 ( 95 % CI , 1.09–1.18 ) . The association between sweetened beverage intake and hypertension was stronger for carbonated beverages versus non-carbonated beverages , and for cola-containing versus non-cola beverages in the NHS I and NHS II cohorts only . Higher fructose intake from SSBs as a percentage of daily calories was associated with increased hypertension risk in NHS I and NHS II ( p-trend = 0.001 in both groups ) , while higher fructose intake from sources other than SSBs was associated with a decrease in hypertension risk in NHS II participants ( p-trend = 0.006 ) . LIMITATIONS Residual confounding factors may interfere with the interpretation of results . CONCLUSIONS SSBs and ASBs are independently associated with an increased risk of incident hypertension after controlling for multiple potential confounders . These associations may be mediated by factors common to both SSBs and ASBs ( e.g. , carbonation or cola ) , but are unlikely to be due to fructose
The highest level of evidence from systematic review s and meta-analyses of controlled trials has not shown that fructose-containing sugars behave any differently from other forms of digestible carbohydrates .
Fructose-containing sugars can only lead to weight gain and other unintended harms on cardiometabolic risk factors insofar as the excess calories they provide .
Prospect i ve cohort studies , which provide the strongest observational evidence , have shown an association between fructose-containing sugars and cardiometabolic risk including weight gain , cardiovascular disease outcomes and diabetes only when restricted to sugar-sweetened beverages and not for sugars from other sources .
In fact , sugar-sweetened beverages are a marker of an unhealthy lifestyle and their drinkers consume more calories , exercise less , smoke more and have a poor dietary pattern .
Fructose-containing sugars are a focus of attention as a public health target for their putative role in obesity and cardiometabolic disease including diabetes .
The fructose moiety is singled out to be the primary driver for the harms of sugars due to its unique endocrine signal and pathophysiological role .
However , this is only supported by ecological studies , animal models of overfeeding and select human intervention studies with supraphysiological doses or lack of control for energy .