CEO Muhtar Kent (wearing sunglasses) celebrating the construction of Coca-Cola’s 45th production facility in China. Source: Coca-Cola Journey, August 2015.

Scientific research has determined that excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages—including sugar-sweetened carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, teas, and fruit drinks—increases the risks of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. In the United States and other high-income nations, that evidence has helped decrease per-capita consumption of sugar drinks. But that is not the case globally.

While soft-drink sales have decreased in wealthier nations, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been making up for declining profits by investing heavily in low- and middle-income countries. And the expansion is coming at the expense of people’s lives, from Central America to South America, Southeast Asia to South Africa.

CSPI’s report, Carbonating the World, finds that companies are spending billions of dollars a year in countries such as Brazil, China, India, and Mexico to build bottling plants, create distribution networks, and advertise their products. And with that investment, the companies are promoting some seriously deadly diseases to countries already struggling to provide health care to their growing populations.

Read the report below.