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The growing public health problem of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and promising strategies to reduce its burden

Nature Food volume 7, pages 1–3 (2026)Cite this article

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Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) have adverse effects on health and the environment, but comprehensive and sustained strategies to curb their intake are lacking. While several countries have implemented policies, a broad suite of effective approaches has been challenging to enact and evaluate due to insufficient administrative or political capacity and strong influence from transnational corporations. Continued research, advocacy and support are needed to successfully implement, monitor, evaluate and revise strategies to reduce SSB intakes worldwide.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Cardiovascular Health Metrics, Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Laura Lara-Castor

  2. Food is Medicine Institute, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Dariush Mozaffarian

  3. Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Dariush Mozaffarian

  4. Department of Medicine, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

    Dariush Mozaffarian

  5. Department of Health Systems and Population Health, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Jessica Jones-Smith

  6. Joe C Wen School of Population and Public Health, Department of Health, Society and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Jessica Jones-Smith

  7. Research Center on Nutrition and Health, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico

    Simon Barquera

Authors
  1. Laura Lara-Castor
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  2. Dariush Mozaffarian
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  3. Jessica Jones-Smith
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  4. Simon Barquera
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura Lara-Castor.

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Competing interests

D.M. is a scientific advisor for Branch Venture Partners, Brightseed, Elysium Health, Instacart Health, January Inc., Nourish and WndrHLTH, and provides scientific consulting for Amazon Health and Google Health. All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Food thanks Karl Emmert-Fees and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Lara-Castor, L., Mozaffarian, D., Jones-Smith, J. et al. The growing public health problem of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and promising strategies to reduce its burden. Nat Food 7, 1–3 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01289-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01289-7

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