Overview
- The study published in Circulation on June 22, 2026 used nearly 25 years of data from the Growing Up Today Study to follow more than 25,000 people who were first surveyed at ages 9–16.
- Participants who drank two or more 12-ounce sugary beverages a day had about a 52% higher risk of a later hypertension diagnosis compared with those who drank fewer than three servings a week.
- Risk rose by dose for specific drinks: roughly 23% higher per daily serving of soda, 36% per daily serving of sports drinks, and about 35% for roughly 12 ounces of fruit juice.
- Replacing one daily serving of sugary drinks with whole fruit was linked to about a 22% lower risk and swapping fruit juice for whole fruit to about a 19% lower risk, while replacing sugary drinks with milk or water tied to up to 13% lower risk.
- Authors caution the study is observational, uses self-reported diet and diagnoses, and may misclassify some beverages, yet the results highlight a clear difference between liquid sugars and whole fruit and point to early childhood beverage choices as a public-health target.