• Posted June 23, 2026

Kids’ Juice And Soda Intake Linked To Higher Blood Pressure Risk As Young Adults

That juice box you hand your child as a daily treat could be setting them up for poor heart health later on, a new study says.

Drinking fruit juice or sugary sodas throughout childhood may be linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure in adulthood, researchers reported June 22 in the journal Circulation.

Kids who drank 12 ounces or more of fruit juice every day had a 35% higher risk of developing high blood pressure in adulthood, researchers found.

Likewise, those who drank 24 ounces or more of sugary sodas or sports drinks had a 52% higher risk.

The study also found that substituting either with a piece of whole fruit lowered a child’s future risk of high blood pressure.

“Dietary habits in early life can have lasting health consequences,” said senior researcher Vasanti Malik, Canada research chair in nutrition and chronic disease prevention at the University of Toronto.

“High blood pressure is also emerging earlier in life, with growing rates being seen in younger adults, in children and adolescents, which highlights the importance of early detection and prevention,” she said in a news release.

High blood pressure contributes to heart disease, heart attack and stroke, researchers said in background notes.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data for nearly 25,800 participants in a long-term study of U.S. youth called the Growing Up Today Study, which tracked kids for up to 25 years.

Participants filled out food questionnaires every one to four years that asked how often they drank sugar-sweetened beverages or fruit juice. They also were asked how often they ate whole fruit.

Results showed that children who drank fruit juice or sugary drinks every day had an elevated risk of high blood pressure as they aged into young adulthood.

For example, each daily 12-ounce serving of soda was linked to a 23% increased risk of high blood pressure, and each serving of sports drinks a 36% higher risk.

Analysis also suggested that replacing one daily serving of sugary drinks with a piece of whole fruit lowered risk by 22%. Replacing a daily serving of fruit juice with whole fruit lowered risk by 19%.

These links were independent of other risk factors for high blood pressure, including overall diet quality and the amount of exercise kids got, researchers said.

“Sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda and sports drinks, which are often marketed as somewhat healthy, should be limited,” Malik said.

“Fruit juice intake may be harmless at low levels yet harmful at higher intake levels. They should always be 100% fruit juice, and even so, consumed only in moderation,” she continued. “Whole fruit should be emphasized over sugary beverages.”

Whole fruit also contains fructose — the sugar found in fruit juice — but the added pulp and fiber in an apple or orange slows digestion, researchers said. This prevents the sort of blood sugar spike that can accompany a slug of juice or soda.

“As has been seen in adults, the total amount of fructose seems less important for the development of hypertension than the type of food where it is consumed, so sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice relate to increased risk, while whole fruit does not,” said Dr. Amit Khera, director of preventive cardiology and clinical chief of cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who reviewed the findings.

“There has been a misconception about fructose in general being harmful for cardiovascular health regardless of the source, and that fruit juices are beneficial for health," he added in a news release. "This study demonstrates that neither seems to be correct.”

More information

Stanford Medicine has more on fruit versus fruit juice.

SOURCES: American Heart Association, news release, June 22, 2026; Circulation, June 22, 2026