Do sugary drinks cause menstruation to start earlier?

I have never had reason to write about the impact of sugary drinks on the age of menstruation – until now! This was one of the more unusual stories in the news last week. It was variously reported as “Sugary drinks may cause menstruation to start earlier, study suggests” and “Girls who drink sugary drinks every day may start periods early”. Then you’ve got to have one that jumps straight to causation: “Research: sugary drinks causes girls to start their periods earlier”.

Here is the full original article. Let's see what was going on...