--- title: Soda: Your Doctor Wants To Sugar-Shame You description: Almost half of adults surveyed drank at least one soda a day canonical: https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-29T18:15:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:06:35.843Z article:section: Health og:title: Here's the Question Your Doctor Should Be Asking You—But Isn't og:description: Almost half of adults surveyed drank at least one soda a day og:url: https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5303f6200d67f379/69876fcd55a8595d64a84dfa/sugar-doctor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3156 og:image:height: 1775 og:image:alt: Sugar Packet og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Question Your Doctor Should Be Asking You—But Isn't twitter:description: Almost half of adults surveyed drank at least one soda a day twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5303f6200d67f379/69876fcd55a8595d64a84dfa/sugar-doctor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Question Your Doctor Should Be Asking You — but Isn't > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 29, 2014 6:15 PM UTC  Sugar Packet Sugar Packet Siede Preis—Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 29, 2014 6:15 PM UTC The last time you went to the doctor, were you asked how much soda you drink? Probably not, but at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, it’s now among the standard questions doctors will ask—and then log into the patient’s electronic health record. Those records, analyzed in a new [study](http://blogs.cdc.gov/pcd/2014/12/17/factors-associated-with-daily-consumption-of-sugar-sweetened-beverages-among-adult-patients-at-four-federally-qualified-health-centers-bronx-new-york-2013/), reveal some interesting connections between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and a slew of health problems. “Information about a patient’s diet and physical activity are vitally important in preventing and managing certain diseases, yet it’s rarely captured in medical records,” says Ross Kristal, first author on the paper and medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Kristal and his colleagues looked at how much sugar-sweetened soda people drank, how many vegetables and fruits they ate and how active they were, among other things and noticed a correlation between a person’s soda habit and other health factors. ### You Asked: Your Top 10 Health Questions Answered  You Asked: Are Cleanses Healthy? Potions that claim to clear your body of toxins might sound alluring, but do they deliver? Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Eating Dessert Really That Bad For Me? Bad news for sweet-eaters—except if you end your meals with this kind of treat. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What’s the Best Way to Whiten My Teeth? Yes, teeth whitening actually works—but here's why you have to dish out major bucks to see results. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Meditation Really Worth It? From easing stress to lowering heart disease risk, focusing your mind can do some amazing things for your body. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What’s the Healthiest Sweetener? Take a taste of the unsettled science of sweeteners. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Should I Go Paleo? The pros and cons of eating like a caveman. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Cracking Your Knuckles Bad? Here's what really happens to your joints when you snap, crackle and pop. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Running on a Treadmill as Good as Running Outside? You'll fool your body into thinking it's outside with this one small treadmill tweak. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Does Laughing Have Real Health Benefits? Here's proof that everybody could use a belly laugh. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What Is My Poo Telling Me? If you listen hard enough, you'll hear all kinds of health stories from #2. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME A full 40% of the people in the study drank at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day. And the researchers noted that those who drank more than one per day were more likely to smoke, were more likely to eat no fruits or vegetables, and were more likely to have gone a month without much walking or biking. **READ MORE** [Weight Loss Supplements Don’t Work for Most People, Study Finds](http://www.time.com/3648784/weight-loss-supplements/) On the flip side, people who didn’t drink a daily soda were less likely to have been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes and hypertension. It seems a doctor’s diabetes diagnosis may get people to drink less soda. Right now, these health behaviors aren’t collected systematically, says senior author of the paper Peter Selwyn, MD, chair of family and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center. But the more doctors know about each of their patients’ health habits, the more they can engage them in an honest—and hopefully effective—conversation about their health. “These associations can help our providers narrow down on perhaps who would be more at risk for some of these unhealthy behaviors which can lead to these poor health outcomes,” Kristal says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/"},"headline":"The Question Your Doctor Should Be Asking You — but Isn't","datePublished":"2014-12-29T18:15:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:35.843Z","description":"Almost half of adults surveyed drank at least one soda a day","url":"https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","Soda","diabetes","Sugar"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5303f6200d67f379/69876fcd55a8595d64a84dfa/sugar-doctor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5303f6200d67f379/69876fcd55a8595d64a84dfa/sugar-doctor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Sugar Packet","caption":"Sugar Packet","creditText":"Siede Preis—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3639703/soda-sugar-health/","name":"The Question Your Doctor Should Be Asking You — but Isn't"}}]}] ```