By all rights, switching from sugary beverages to sugar-free alternatives should be one of the simplest ways to cut back on calories. There are plenty of no-calorie drinks to choose from, after all. And hey, there’s always water, the cheapest and least adulturated beverage around.

But more Americans are imbibing more calories in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages than ever, according to a new report by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to be published in the January 2008 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

From 1988 to 2004, the percentage of people drinking sugar-sweetened beverage increased five percent. Individual consumption of energy from such drinks increased 46 calories per day. Among people who regularly drink beverages sweetened with added sugar, the amount consumed jumped by six ounces a day.

Distressingly, consumption was highest among young adults, who averaged 231 to 289 calories a day from sugary beverages such as soft drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks and punches, and sweetened teas and coffees. “There are few signs of improvement over the past decade and the situation seems to become worse among young adults aged 20 to 44,” said Youfa Wang, MD, PhD, associate professor with the Bloomberg School’s Center for Human Nutrition.

While obesity experts worry that sugar-sweetened beverages are making people fat, diabetes experts fret that they may be fueling the epidemic of type 2 diabetes.

And this week a Princeton University research team added more cause for concern. Studies led by psychologist Bart Hoebel, PhD, at the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute suggest that sugar may be addictive, causing both bingeing, craving, and relapse in lab animals. When rats are “hooked” on sugar and then denied it, they work harder to get it and, when they do, consume more sugar than they ever did before, Hoebel reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Scottsdale, AZ. And that’s not all. When the rats sugar supply was cut off, they exhibited classic signs of withdrawal, including anxiety, withdrawal, and even chattering teeth.

Bingeing on sugar altered the rats’ brain chemistry in ways similar to that seen with cocaine and heroin, the researchers found.

What bearing this has on humans with a sweet tooth remains to be seen. But this much is clear: sugar-sweetened beverages are typically loaded with calories and not much else. Finding sugar-free alternatives remains one of the simplest ways to change your diet for the better.

For more on sugary beverages, check out PDQhealth’s previous report, “Stealth calories.”

Tags: addiction, calories, sugar-sweetened beverages, weight loss