Sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages and natural juices and risk of inflammatory bowel disease: a cohort study of 121,490 participants

Background Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) have been related to high-sugar dietary patterns, but the associations of different types of beverages with IBD risk are largely unknown. Aims To examine the associations of intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages and natural juices with IBD risk. Methods This cohort study included 121,490 participants in the UK Biobank who were free of IBD at recruitment. Intake of beverages was obtained from repeated 24-h diet recalls in 2009-2012. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations of beverage intake with IBD risk. Results During a mean (standard deviation) follow-up of 10.2 (1.5) years, we documented 510 incident IBD cases, (143 Crohn's disease (CD) and 367 ulcerative colitis (UC)). Compared to non-consumers, participants consuming >1 unit per day of sugar-sweetened beverages were at significantly higher risk of IBD (HR 1.51, 95% CI 1.11-2.05), but the trend was non-significant (p-trend = 0.170). This association was significant for CD (HR 2.05, 95% CI 1.22-3.46), but not for UC (HR 1.31, 95% CI 0.89-1.92). We did not observe significant associations for the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages or natural juices. Conclusions Our findings suggest an association between consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, rather than artificially sweetened beverages or natural juices, and IBD risk.