NewsResearch
Sugary Drinks and Stomach Cancer: What the 'Nearly Triple the Risk' Study Actually Found
A study of 112,284 people found daily sugar-sweetened drinks linked to higher stomach cancer risk. The relative figure is large and the absolute risk is small. Both things are true, and the difference matters.
Original commentary from the Cancer Explained editorial team.
Please note: this page is educational only — it is not medical advice, and it does not speculate about anyone’s health beyond reliable public reporting. For questions about your own health, talk with your healthcare team.
The headline and the number underneath it
A study published in Gastro Hep Advances reported that people who drank at least one sugar-sweetened drink a day had about 2.45 times the risk of developing stomach cancer compared with people who drank almost none. Split by sex, the figure was roughly threefold in women and roughly twofold in men.
"Nearly triple the risk" is an accurate description of that result. It is also the least useful way to hear it, because it tells you nothing about how likely stomach cancer was to begin with.
How big is the risk being tripled?
The study followed 112,284 people from 1986 to 2022 — 36 years. In all that time, 278 of them developed stomach cancer.
That is roughly one person in 400, across more than three decades.
SEER, the federal cancer statistics program, puts it another way: about 0.8% of men and women will be diagnosed with stomach cancer at some point in their lives, based on 2021–2023 data. Stomach cancer accounts for 1.5% of new cancer diagnoses in the United States.
So the honest sentence is this. A small risk, multiplied by about two and a half, is still a small risk. It is not nothing — stomach cancer is serious, and five-year relative survival is 39.8% for people diagnosed between 2016 and 2022 — but a daily soda does not move most people from safe to doomed.
What kind of study this was
This was an observational study. Researchers tracked what people reported drinking and recorded who later developed cancer. They did not assign anyone to drink soda.
That design can show a pattern. It cannot show that one thing caused the other. Andrew T. Chan, the senior author, said so directly: the study "is unable to really prove cause and effect."
Our guide to reading cancer headlines covers why that distinction does so much work.
The limitation that matters most here
Stomach cancer has a dominant known cause, and it is not sugar.
NCI's prevention summary states that "chronic infection of the mucosal layer of the stomach with H. pylori is a major risk factor for stomach cancer." Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium, and it is the single biggest driver of stomach cancer worldwide.
The researchers reported having limited information about H. pylori infection in their participants. That is a real gap. If the people drinking more sugary drinks also differed in their rates of H. pylori infection, or in anything else the study could not fully measure, some of the association could belong to that instead.
The authors also noted incomplete records of some participants' family histories of gastric cancer.
Who was studied
The participants came from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study — two long-running American cohorts made up largely of white health professionals.
That is a well-characterised group with decades of careful follow-up, which is a genuine strength. It also means the result has not yet been shown to hold in populations with different diets, different H. pylori rates, or different access to care. The researchers said the findings need confirming in more diverse populations.
What about diet soda?
The same study looked at artificially sweetened drinks and found no association with stomach cancer.
That is worth stating plainly, because it is the obvious next question and the study actually answered it.
If you want the wider picture on sugar and cancer, we have a separate claim-check on whether sugar feeds cancer, which addresses a different and much more common myth.
What NCI already says about diet and stomach cancer
None of this is the first suggestion that diet matters here. NCI's PDQ states that "eating a diet that is low in fruits and vegetables or that is high in salted, smoked, or poorly preserved foods may increase the risk of stomach cancer."
Note the verb. May. That is the level of confidence the evidence currently supports, and this new study does not change it.
What to actually do with this
Cutting back on sugary drinks is a reasonable thing to do. The case for it rests on well-established ground — weight, dental health, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk — and now has one more observational study pointing the same way.
What this study does not justify is alarm. It does not mean a person who drinks soda will get stomach cancer, and it does not mean someone with stomach cancer caused it by drinking soda.
If you have symptoms that are new and persistent — trouble swallowing, ongoing indigestion or stomach pain, unexplained weight loss, vomiting blood or black stools — that is a reason to see a doctor regardless of what you drink. Our page on stomach cancer symptoms explains what those signs mean, and stomach cancer risk factors covers the fuller list, H. pylori included.
One caution on the source
The full paper sits behind a publisher block that we could not read directly, and it has not yet appeared in PubMed. The figures above are as reported in coverage of the study and by its senior author, cross-checked against SEER and NCI for the background statistics. We will update this page once the paper is independently accessible.
Sources
Know someone who needs this?
Plenty of people are looking for something like this and do not know where to start. If this would help a friend or someone you love, send it on — we have written an opening line so you do not have to stare at an empty message. You can change every word of it.
Your message is written and sent in your own email or messaging app — we never see who you send it to, and nothing is added to any list.
Put the story in context
Prevention, possible warning signs, screening, and diagnosis
This story relates to Stomach cancer. The information below is general: it does not reveal anything else about a public person’s health, and not every point applies to every cancer. Personal advice depends on age, symptoms, family history, exposures, and medical history.
Prevention and risk reduction
Not every cancer can be prevented. Avoiding tobacco, protecting skin from ultraviolet radiation, limiting alcohol, staying active, and receiving recommended HPV or hepatitis B vaccination can lower the risk of certain cancers. A risk factor is not a prediction or a cause in one individual.
Symptoms and possible early signs
Possible signs vary and are often caused by conditions other than cancer. Changes worth discussing include a new lump, unexplained bleeding or weight loss, a persistent cough, lasting bowel or bladder changes, a changing skin spot, or symptoms that persist or worsen. Some early cancers cause no symptoms.
Screening and early detection
Screening looks for certain cancers before symptoms begin. Recommended tests exist only for some cancers and depend on age and risk. Screening can have benefits and harms; it is not the same as evaluating a new symptom, and there is no single routine scan or blood test that reliably screens for every cancer.
How cancer is diagnosed
Diagnosis may involve a history and exam, imaging, laboratory tests, and often a biopsy. Pathology can identify the cancer type and may test biomarkers that guide treatment. Symptoms, screening results, tumor markers, or online stories alone cannot confirm cancer.
Learn about this story’s cancer topic
A public story may encourage questions, but it should not be used to estimate your risk or choose testing. Contact a healthcare professional about a persistent or concerning change. Seek urgent care for severe or rapidly worsening symptoms.