Associations of sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages, and natural juices with cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in individuals with inflammatory bowel disease in a prospective cohort study

This prospective cohort study included 1981 UK Biobank participants with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and used a validated 24-h WebQ to assess beverage consumption, with outcomes followed via inpatient, primary care, and death registry data over a mean of 10.1 (SD 1.7) years. The authors documented 205 cardiovascular events and 133 deaths, and applied Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios. Compared with non-consumers, those consuming sugar-sweetened beverages more than 1 unit/day had a 64% higher cardiovascular disease risk and a 97% higher all-cause mortality risk, and participants consuming artificially sweetened beverages more than 1 unit/day had a 78% higher cardiovascular disease risk. Natural juice consumption was not significantly associated with either outcome. The authors note limitations including observational design that prevents causal inference, a single 24-h recall for about 38% of participants, limited sample size for subtype and cause-specific analyses, and a predominantly white, over-40 cohort that limits generalizability.