The Effects Orange Juice Has On Your Body May Depend On Your Weight, New Study Says

The study is small, but it's another example of how different bodies have different needs.

Eating breakfast is a surprisingly vital part of health, and many of us love to wash it down with a glass of OJ. Perhaps you’re drinking it because your blood sugar is low, you want vitamin C to boost immunity or you simply like the taste.

While some nutritional facts about orange juice are pretty well-known and straightforward — like the aforementioned considerable vitamin C content — the effects it has on your body aren’t as clear as previously thought, according to a 2025 study. More specifically, what you reap from the drink may depend on your weight.

“According to the study authors, drinking orange juice activated different genes in ‘overweight’ participants than ‘normal weight’ participants, although they never define what they mean by these terms in the study,” said Christine Byrne, a dietitian and the owner of Ruby Oak Nutrition in Raleigh, North Carolina. “If they were using BMI criteria, ‘normal weight’ means anyone with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, while ‘overweight’ means anyone with a BMI of 25-29.9.”

(BMI and its younger sibling, the BRI, have since been debunked, but are still widely used. Descriptors like “normal,” “overweight” and “higher” are in quotations for the former reason.)

Back to orange juice and weight. With these findings, does a glass of OJ still fit into your health goals? Let’s find out. HuffPost talked to registered dietitians about this study, how orange juice may affect your body and what the real-life implications are.