{"id":2936,"date":"2026-03-13T15:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/which-is-worse-a-soda-or-a-beer\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T15:30:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:30:48","slug":"which-is-worse-a-soda-or-a-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/which-is-worse-a-soda-or-a-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"Which is worse, a soda or a beer?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Walter Willett (from left), Eric Rimm, and Timothy Rebbeck. Anna Grummon of Stanford joined the conversation via Zoom.<\/p>\n

Photos by Veasey Conway\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHealth\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhich is worse, a soda or a beer?\t<\/h1>\n

\n\t\t\tExperts seek to clarify the health effects of alcohol and sugary drinks\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tAlvin Powell\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/address>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t
\n\t\t\t5 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Pure, clear water: yes. Soda and other sugary drinks: no. Alcohol in its many forms: maybe, but always in moderation.<\/p>\n

In a conversation Thursday at the Harvard Chan School, experts zeroed in on beverages, emphasizing health effects that are no less serious than the risks and benefits that come with food.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our first cup of coffee in the morning, to a glass of wine at night, to an energy drink, these beverages are woven into our lifestyles, our celebrations, and our cultures,\u201d said Timothy Rebbeck<\/a>, the Vincent L. Gregory Jr. Professor of Cancer Prevention and director of the Chan School\u2019s Zhu Family Center for Global Cancer Prevention. \u201cYet the health impacts of the beverages, especially when it comes to cancer and the long-term effects on chronic disease and health, have been confusing and sometimes controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcohol, with its mixed health profile, took center stage, with Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology Eric Rimm<\/a> and Professor of Epidemiology and of Nutrition Walter Willett<\/a> outlining the pros and cons. On one hand, Rimm said, moderate alcohol use has been shown to protect from heart attack and, on a population scale, lower mortality for those consuming between half a drink and a drink a day. On the other hand, studies have shown that alcohol increases the risk of several types of cancer, including breast cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we know is that people that drink about a half a drink to a drink a day live the longest, so they die less of heart attacks,\u201d Rimm said. \u201cThey may have a bit more cancer, but the absolute risk of heart attacks is much greater than the absolute risk of breast cancer or colon cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willett acknowledged that the increased cancer risk can be small, especially compared with major hazards like smoking. Still, on a population scale, the increased risk of breast cancer due to drinking is large enough to counterbalance the benefits of screening, he said.<\/p>\n

Willett and Rimm also offered practical advice to help consumers understand what the competing statistics might mean at the individual level. One has to evaluate these risks within one\u2019s own context, they noted. For example, Willett said, a young woman with a healthy heart may want to focus squarely on alcohol\u2019s breast cancer threat. That calculus may be different for others, depending on their specific circumstances and family background.<\/p>\n

Though the discussion focused on the health claims surrounding moderate drinking (one drink per day for women, two for men), another panelist, Stanford\u2019s Anna Grummon<\/a>, noted that alcohol\u2019s biggest societal impact comes from dependence and heavy drinking, conditions that lead to dangerous behaviors like drunk driving and physical violence, and can devastate families.<\/p>\n

Anna Grummon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat we see in the data is that many of the harms that we worry about with alcohol consumption, a lot of those are not necessarily around heart disease or cancer, but around addiction and motor vehicle crashes, and these are significant contributors to the overall death rate in the U.S.,\u201d said Grummon, director of Stanford\u2019s Food Policy Lab. These effects suggest that policy makers might want to \u201cnudge\u201d consumption downward so that more people are meeting the level of \u201cmoderate\u201d drinking, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any policymaker is interested in getting to zero consumption. I don\u2019t think we want to go back to prohibition,\u201d Grummon said, \u201cbut I think there\u2019s interest in moving the curve a little bit to the left towards lower consumption and more people meeting the guidelines that Eric mentioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mixed picture for alcohol consumption was in contrast to what panelists agreed is a much clearer one for soda, energy drinks, and other sugar-sweetened beverages, including sugary fruit juices. A 12-ounce can of a popular soda brand has 10 teaspoons of sugar, an amount almost nobody would add to a cup of coffee or tea, Rimm said. Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is linked to rising obesity, which itself raises cancer risk, and diabetes, which increases risk of heart attack and stroke.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you compare a soda to water, or soda to coffee, or soda to tea, whatever you\u2019re comparing it to always wins,\u201d Rimm said.<\/p>\n

One answer for those who don\u2019t want to give up sugar is to switch to drinks with artificial sweeteners. Willett said that sweeteners, especially aspartame, have largely proven to be safe and significantly improve a drink\u2019s health profile. But the best choice is water, he said. And since the water supplies in most major cities are safe, a person can take it right from the tap.<\/p>\n

Willett pointed out that the failure of the national government to act on regulating these drinks isn\u2019t unique. Campaigns that wound up curbing smoking and banning trans fats, for example, both started at the local level, grew to the state level and then gathered enough momentum that the national government acted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the action is,\u201d Willett said. \u201cIt\u2019s state and local, even sublocal \u2014institutional \u2014 and people can make a difference there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walter Willett (from left), Eric Rimm, and Timothy Rebbeck. Anna Grummon of Stanford joined the conversation via Zoom. Photos by Veasey Conway\/Harvard Staff Photographer Health Which is worse, a soda or a beer? Experts seek to clarify the health effects of alcohol and sugary drinks Alvin Powell Harvard Staff Writer March 2, 2026 5 min …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":109,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staying-healthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}