Soft drinks get a bad checkup

Drinking too many sugary drinks on a daily basis has been linked to gallbladder cancer.

Swedish researchers studied the eating and drinking habits of more than 70,000 adults, keeping an eye out for cancer diagnoses. They found that people who downed two or more soft drinks (including those with artificial sweeteners) or juice beverages a day doubled their risk of developing gallbladder tumors.

Moreover, the soda drinkers also had a 79 percent higher risk of having biliary tract cancer, according to the study, published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Those who had two or more sugary drinks a day also tended to be overweight and ate a less healthy diet — more calories, sugar and carbohydrates and less protein and fat.

People with a history of diabetes or cancer were left out of the study.

While the results do not prove that sugary drinks cause cancer, researchers stressed, there is evidence that the risk is higher for people who drink a lot of heavily sweetened beverages.

"These findings support the hypothesis that high consumption of sweetened beverages may increase the risk of [biliary tract cancers], particularly gallbladder cancer," the scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden concluded.

We all know that if we sit at a desk all day and on a couch all evening, we need to exercise. But how much?

The Norwegian School of Sports Sciences has come up with a formula for determining that. It's based on the amount of sitting you do. If you sit four hours a day, you need to do at least 30 minutes of exercise. An eight-hour workday of sitting means 60 minutes of exercise. Twelve hours (eight working and four on the couch) requires 90 minutes. Or you can do the math for any time period using the ratio of 7½ minutes of exercise for every hour of sitting.

The ideal amount of exercise people should do has been a source of debate. Fitness-band companies have pushed 10,000 steps a day as a goal. The World Health Organization recommends at least 150 minutes of activity a week. The American Heart Association recommends 30 minutes a day.

This study recommends a higher threshold for the minimum amount of exercise. But, said researcher Ulf Ekelund, the exercise doesn't have to be all at one time. That is, an hour of activity can be spread out over an entire day.