Table 1.

Main findings on the association between sugar intake and breast cancer development.

Author (Year) [Ref]	Food/Intervention under Investigation	Type of Study	Participants	Assessment of Dietary Intake	Main Results
Mullie P et al. (2016) [26]	GI and GL	Meta-analysis	773,971 women	FFQ	Women with a high GI or GL have a 5–6% increased risk of breast cancer
Schlesinger S et al. (2017) [27]	Carbohydrate GI, GL diet	Systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis	892,403 women	FFQ	GL and carbohydrate intake were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer only among hormone receptor–negative tumors, particularly ER-negative.
Hodge AM et al. (2018) [28]	Artificially sweetened soft drinks	Prospective cohort study	35,593 participants	FFQ	The highest risk of breast cancer was associated with 1–6 sweetened soft drinks/week in post-menopausal women.
Debras C et al. (2020) [29]	Added sugar intake	Prospective cohort study	101,279 participants	Repeated 24-h dietary records	Total sugar intake was positively associated with high overall cancer risk, including breast cancer.
Li Y et al. (2021) [21]	Sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice	Systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis	8465 cases and 119,153 controls	FFQ	The highest level of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption showed an increased breast cancer risk.
Long T et al. (2022) [25]	GI and GL	Meta-analysis	15,839 cases and 577,538 participants	FFQ	A positive association between breast cancer development and GI was observed only in the post-menopausal setting.
Debras C et al. (2022) [30]	Artificial sweeteners	Prospective cohort study	102,865 adults	Repeated 24-h dietary records	Artificial sweeteners (aspartame and acesulfameK) were associated with increased breast cancer incidence.

GI: glycemic index; GL: glycemic load; FFQ: food frequency questionnaire.