A study was led by the University of Minnesota has suggested that people who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer.

The study is reported to follow some 60,000 people in Singapore for 14 years. The conclusions were fetched using data from the Singapore Chinese Health Study at the National University of Singapore, which is a broad, long-term project on cancer.

Sugar may be the culprit but people who drink sweetened sodas on regular basis often possess other poor health habits, posted Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.

According to a new article in the Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention journal, American researchers discovered that if a person intakes more than two soft drinks a week, he will have an 87 per cent higher risk of galling in prey to pancreatic cancer.

"Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not", said Mayne, who serves on the board of the journal, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.