Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and serum uric acid concentrations: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Serum uric acid concentration has been linked with metabolic abnormalities. The available evidence on the association of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage (SSB) intake with serum uric acid concentrations is conflicting. The present study aimed to summarise earlier findings on the association of SSB consumption with serum uric acid concentrations in adults.

Using relevant keywords, we conducted a search in PubMed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), Scopus (https://www.scopus.com) and Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com) up to September 2017 for all published papers assessing SSB intake and serum uric acid concentrations. SSBs were defined as the dietary intake of Sugar-Sweetened Soft Drinks and Fruit Juice (FJ), or as Sugar-Sweetened Soft Drinks, Diet Soft Drinks and Orange Juice or as Soda and FJ.

After excluding non-relevant papers, five studies, with six effect sizes, remained in our systematic review. All studies included in the current systematic review were of cross-sectional design that were published between 2007 and 2013. The number of participants ranged from 483 to 14 761 people. Most studies had controlled for age, body mass index, weight and sex. We found that individuals in the highest category of SSB intake had 0.18 mg dL^-1 greater concentrations of serum uric acid compared to those in the lowest category (summary effect size: 0.18 mg dL^-1 ; 95% confidence interval = 0.11-0.25). No significant between-study heterogeneity was found (I²  = 0.0%, P = 0.698). In the sensitivity analysis, we found no particular study influence on the summary effect. There was no evidence of publication bias.

We found that SSB consumption was significantly associated with increased serum uric acid concentrations in an adult population.