Association between soft drinks consumption and asthma

Researchers performed a meta-analysis and systematic review investigating the correlation between consumption of soft drinks and asthma prevalence among adults and children. Searching Medline, Scopus, ISI Web of Science and the Cochrane Library up to December 2018, they included 19 publications in this systematic review, including three cohort studies and 16 cross-sectional studies. These works comprised 468,836 participants, in total, with more than 50,000 asthma cases. Findings, mostly from cross-sectional studies, indicate soft drinks consumption to be positively associated with asthma prevalence. The association endured for sugar-sweetened soft drinks in subgroup analysis for childhood exposure, but not for carbonated drinks. They recommend performing more longitudinal research to establish causality.