According to new research published in Injury Prevention, teens who drink more than five cans of non-diet, fizzy soft drinks a week are more prone to aggressive, even violent behaviour.
Known as the "Twinkie Defense", US lawyers have in the past successfully argued that a teen accused of murder had "diminished capacity as a result of a junk food diet".
Although the precedent-setting case blaming a cream-filled snack cake seemed hokey at best, it may have merit.
The behaviour of almost 2,000 Boston, MA, 14- to 18-year-old teens between were studied according to how much carbonated non-diet soft drinks they had drunk in a given week.
Although less than 30 per cent fell into the high consumption (five or more cans per week) category, these teens were found to be more violent in their dealings with peers, siblings, etc, and were more likely to have carried a gun or knife over the past year.
"There may be a direct cause-and-effect-relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks," claim the study's authors.
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