Researchers in the US have some of the newest evidence on this front: revealing in JAMA that 100% fruit juice is nearly as dangerous for our health as other sugary beverages like soda and other sippables with added sugar.
After analyzing years of health records of more than 13,400 US adults - both black and white - the researchers behind this new study found that "each additional 12-ounce serving" of juice that adults drink per day is associated with a 24% higher risk of death. That doesn't necessarily mean that juice causes death, there could be other factors in the mix, like how active juice drinkers are, or how healthy their diets are overall. Still, keeping in mind that the study comes on the heels of years of other evidence, this study is just the latest reminder of all the ways that juice is doing terrible things for your body.
The reason juice is bad for people has to do in part with the way our bodies process the sugar in fruit juice, which is almost identical to how we take in the sugar in a can of soda.
"The biological response is essentially the same," as a team of Harvard researchers also wrote in JAMA recently.
Juice isn't as good for us as whole fruit
When we drink sugar from beverages such as juice or soda, fructose rushes into the liver, unabated by other key nutrients in whole fruit, such as fiber, that slow down digestion and help us feel full and satiated.
"There's some pretty good evidence that when we drink liquid calories, like in the sugary beverages, we don't eat less food as a result," nutrition professor Jean Welsh at Emory University previously told Business Insider when her research also revealed a link between sugary drinks and death. "It's basically sugar and water, and no protein or fat to counteract that metabolism."
Other nutrition experts consistently agree that juice consumption can, over time, lead to inflammation, insulin resistance, diabetes, and more belly fat.
"You just end up consuming more calories per day, and it leads to weight gain over time," Vasanti Malik, a research scientist from the Department of Nutrition in the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health told Business Insider earlier this year when she published a study showing that drinking sugar leads to more deaths, especially from cancers and heart problems.