Sugary drinks linked to thousands of deaths every year. You probably know that sugary drinks aren’t good for you, but you probably didn’t realize they might lead to death. That’s the finding in a study out this week. “By contributing to obesity and, through that, to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks appears to claim the lives of about 25,000 American adults yearly and is linked worldwide to the deaths of 180,000 each year. To generate those estimates of sugary beverages’ health toll, researchers combed through national dietary surveys that captured patterns of beverage consumption in 51 countries from 1980 to 2010. The researchers then mined resource databases to discern the availability and consumption of sugar in 187 countries. They tallied consumption of drinks, homemade and mass-produced, that deliver 50 calories or more per 8-ounce serving, and did not count 100% fruit juices.” The research showed that the U.S. is second behind Mexico in terms of deaths caused by sugary drink consumption.