Children who drank two or more 8-ounce servings of sugary drinks a day faced a 52% higher risk of developing high blood pressure as adults, compared with peers who had fewer than three servings a week.
The finding comes from a new analysis of the Growing Up Today Study, published in Circulation on June 22, 2026.
Researchers followed more than 25,000 people who first joined the cohort between the ages of 9 and 16, tracking their diet and health for up to 25 years. About 6% of participants reported a hypertension diagnosis over follow-up, and the median age of participants by the end of the study was 36.
The risk grows with each serving
The dose-response pattern was consistent across drink types. Each additional daily 8-ounce soda was tied to a 23% higher hypertension risk, and each sports drink to a 36% increase.
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Fruit juice was not spared. Drinking 1.5 or more servings a day was linked to a 35% higher risk, and each daily glass of orange juice specifically to a 20% increase, according to the American Heart Association.
Those numbers held after the researchers adjusted for body weight, physical activity and overall diet quality. That means the association was not simply a proxy for being overweight or eating poorly in general.
Why whole fruit is different
The same sugar delivered in whole fruit did not carry the same risk. Senior author Vasanti Malik is associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Nutrition and Chronic Disease Prevention at the University of Toronto, and an adjunct faculty member at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Speaking to the University of Toronto, she said form matters as much as amount.
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"The source and form of the sugar are important for hypertension risk. We have to think about the whole food source, not just the nutrient on its own," Malik said.
Whole fruit is packaged with fiber and other nutrients that slow sugar absorption. Liquid sugar, by contrast, floods the bloodstream quickly, which researchers believe is central to why beverages behave differently from the fruit they are made from.
What parents and adults can do
Swapping one daily sugary drink for whole fruit was linked to a 22% lower hypertension risk in the analysis. Replacing a serving of fruit juice with whole fruit was tied to a 19% reduction, and switching to milk or water offered up to a 13% lower risk.
The findings align with standing pediatric advice. The American Heart Association recommends that children and adolescents ages 2 to 18 keep sugar-sweetened beverages to no more than one 8-ounce drink a week and cap added sugars at about 25 grams, or six teaspoons, a day.
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Children under 2 should have no added sugars at all.
The study is observational, so it cannot prove that childhood soda directly causes adult hypertension. It also relied on self-reported diet and enrolled a predominantly white cohort, which limits how far the numbers translate to other groups.
Adults concerned about their own blood pressure should talk to their doctor about screening and next steps.
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