Health officials, including those at the American Cancer Society, have long advised people to cut down on sugary beverages — including fruit juice — because of the evidence linking them to excess weight, which is a major risk factor for cancer.

Sugar-sweetened sodas and other drinks — including 100 percent fruit juice — may raise the risk of developing some cancers, according to the findings from a large French study published this week in The BMJ.

Specifically, the study found that drinking as little as three-and-a-half ounces of sugary beverages a day — about a third of a typical can of soda — was associated with an 18 percent increase in the overall risk of cancer.

For women, drinking that amount of soda was linked to a 22 percent increased risk of breast cancer. Those increased risks correspond to about an extra four cases of cancer among every 1,000 people over a five-year period.

This was an observational study, so it can’t prove cause and effect. It’s also difficult to isolate the impact that a single element of a person’s diet has on his or her health. But this is not the first time that researchers have linked the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks with serious health risks. Other research has found strong associations between the regular consumption of sugary drinks and an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

And a study published earlier this year in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation reported that the more sugary beverages people drink, the greater their risk of dying early — from cancer as well as from heart disease.

Health officials, including those at the American Cancer Society (ACS), have long advised people to cut down on sugary beverages — including fruit juice — because of the evidence linking them to excess weight, which is a major risk factor for cancer.

But, as Colleen Doyle, managing director of nutrition and physical activity at the ACS, told Consumer Reports, “what makes this new study unique is it’s the first one of its kind to suggest a direct link — that it’s sugar itself, whether it’s added or from natural sources like fruit juice, that is the problem.”

Key findings

The amount of sugary drinks consumed by the people in the study ranged from an average of 3.1 ounces to 6.2 ounces per day. Men tended to drink more of the beverages than women.

For every 3.4 ounces of sugary drinks the participants consumed daily, their risk of developing any kind of cancer increased by 18 percent — and the women’s risk of developing breast cancer climbed by 22 percent — compared to participants who drank less than 3.4 ounces per day.

The researchers found no increased risk, however, for two other specific cancers that they focused on in the study — prostate and colorectal.

They also found no link between artificially sweetened drinks and an increased risk of cancer, although the researchers caution that the amount of these beverages consumed in the study was low, which makes that finding less reliable.