Prediabetes is an important landmark on the way to type 2 diabetes, McKeown said. It means a person has elevated blood sugar — a sign of increasing insulin resistance — but has not entered full-blown type 2 diabetes.
Prediabetes is reversible if a person cuts back on sugar. Sugar-sweetened beverages are the leading source of added sugar in the American diet, the authors said in background notes.
These results show cutting back on sugary drinks is “a modifiable dietary factor that could have an impact on that progression from prediabetes to diabetes,” McKeown said.
For this study, McKeown and her colleagues analyzed 14 years of data on nearly 1,700 middle-aged adults. The information was obtained from the Framingham Heart Study, a federally funded program that has monitored multiple generations for lifestyle and clinical characteristics that contribute to heart disease.
Participants did not have diabetes or prediabetes when they entered the study. They self-reported their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and diet sodas.