Daily HealthBeat Tip

Sweetness and calories

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A study on what teenagers drink indicates the calories in some sweet drinks can get in the way of weight control.

A researcher gave some teens no-calorie drinks while also following other teens who drank what they usually drank. Before the study started, all the teens consumed at least one serving of sugar-sweetened beverage a day.

The study by Cara Ebbeling of Children's Hospital Boston was supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the journal Pediatrics.

After about six months, teens in the group that drank what they usually drank had not changed their weight. But the heaviest teens on the no-calorie drinks had lost weight. The difference between groups: about a pound a month.

Ebbeling's conclusion:

"Decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption seems to be a promising strategy for preventing and treating obesity in teens." (seven seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April 25, 2006

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