New year, new me, and all that jazz. Yes, 'tis the season to get your shit together and get your butts off the couch - and, for many of us, to stop consuming so much of that white devil powder, sugar.
Although you might think swerving the Coke and Irn-Bru is enough to bury that sweet tooth for another year, according to a new study, fruit drinks and sugary teas are to be avoided as well - as drinking too much of them raises the chance of chronic kidney disease, by a considerable amount.
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Better add them to the list, people.
Yes, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, examined survey data on drink consumption among 3,003 African-American men and women, all of whom did not have kidney disease and were at an average age of 54.
Following the participants for between eight to ten years, they discovered that around 6 percent of those involved developed chronic kidney disease.
After lead researcher Dr. Casey M. Rebholz and the team behind the study accounted for factors that are linked to kidney damage - smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, inactivity, etc. - they found that swerving the water for fizzy and sweet fruit drinks increases the risk of chronic kidney disease by a whopping 61 percent.
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These figures are not to be messed with and the team decided to look into the individual drinks to figure out which ones cause the most damage. We all know by now that soda ain't good for us, so it goes without saying that these types of drinks are the most damaging and when taken on their own are associated with a 9 percent higher risk.
However, as reported in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, higher intakes of beer and tea were also linked to greater odds of kidney disease - bad news for anyone who needs their 15 cups with milk and two (sometimes three) sugars to get them through the day.
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Dr. Rebholz told Reuters: "It is widely recognized that sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda and sweetened fruit drinks, should be avoided in order to reduce one's risk of developing chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
"These findings add to the body of literature on the adverse health effects of sugar-sweetened beverages and support recommendations to avoid their consumption."
To wrap up: sugar is bad for us, according to science. But we already knew that, right? When it comes to the solution, unfortunately there's no clear-cut way to health - I'm sticking fully with the mantra 'everything in moderation'.
Oh yeah, and one sugar instead of two (sometimes three) in my daily bucket of tea.
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