Health Tips

3 Surprising Reasons to Give Up Soda

By Leah Zerbe

 

You already know it's not good for you, but these three facts could help you quit soda—cold turkey.

By now, it's probably fair to say that most Americans know soda isn't a health-promoting drink. Over the years, the carbonated beverage has been blamed for the obesity epidemic and rising healthcare costs. Some public health experts have even called for a soda tax to help deter people from drinking so much of it. While love handles and diabetes are obvious problems associated with soda, drinking the sweet carbonated beverages harbors hidden threats, too.

1. It causes invisible fat buildup around your organs.

In the latest bad news for the soda industry, Danish researchers discovered that drinking non-diet soda leads to dramatic increases in dangerous hidden fats. In the study, researchers asked participants to drink either soda sweetened with 50 percent glucose and 50 fructose (table sugar, the soda sweetener of choice in Denmark), milk containing the same amount of calories as the regular soda, diet cola, or water every day for six months.

While total fat mass remained the same across all beverage-consuming groups, researchers say dramatic increases in fats that are hard to detect with the naked eye occurred. Those who drank the regular cola experienced a 132 to 142 percent increase in liver fat, a 117 to 221 percent jump in skeletal fat, and about a 30 percent increase in both triglyceride blood fats and other organ fat. The regular soda-drinking group also experienced an 11 percent increase in cholesterol, compared to the people who drank beverages.

In America, many sodas are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup that has been shown to cause even worse fat buildup. Avoid turning to diet soda as a healthy alternative. Artificial sweeteners and food dyes have been linked to brain cell damage and hyperactivity; people who drink diet soda are also more prone to developing diabetes.

2. Some contain toxic flame retardants.

Some popular soda brands, including Mountain Dew, use a toxic flame retardant chemical ingredient to keep the artificial flavoring from separating from the rest of the liquid. Brominated vegetable oil, also sometimes listed as BVO on soda and sports drink, can cause bromide poisoning symptoms like skin lesions and memory loss, as well as nerve disorders.

3. You're taking part in the biggest science experiment on the planet.

Many soda brands on the market in America today are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, a heart-harming man-made compound derived mainly from genetically engineered (GE) corn. GE technology was only introduced into our food chain in the 1990s. We don't know the long-term health impacts of their use because the corporations that developed the crops never had to test to make sure it's safe over the long term. Other independent scientists are finding that GE crops are linked to digestive tract damage, accelerated aging, and even infertility.

Diet Soda = Diabetes Soda

Food and Nutrition

                                                

Diet Soda = Diabetes Soda

It may be calorie-free, but diet soda is linked to diabetes and metabolic problems in new study.

By Leah Zerbe

http://www.rodale.com

Healthy eating tends to go out the window when diet soda's on the menu.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If you’re fueling up on french fries and spending a lot of time parked on the couch, don’t expect diet soda to save you. Downing calorie-free pop could have the unappetizing consequence of increasing your risk of developing diabetes, according to a new study published in the journal Diabetes Care.

THE DETAILS: Researchers looked at people’s diet soda consumption between the years 2000 and 2002, and then screened them for type 2 diabetes between 2002 and 2007, as part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or MESA, an investigation involving more than 6,800 people between 45 and 84 years old. People who drank at least one diet soda a day at the beginning of the study had a 67 percent higher relative risk of type 2 diabetes compared with the people who drank none. Zero-calorie soda also increased the risk of metabolic syndrome—a group of risk factors linked to obesity that increase your chances of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke—by 36 percent.

WHAT IT MEANS: Sipping diet soda to avoid calories sounds like a good idea, but in the real world it tends to come along with other behaviors that may endanger your health. This study didn’t look at the possible cause between the association of diabetes and diet soda, but the lead author has a pretty good idea why this happens. “Although our data did not clearly support this theory, I suspect that persons drinking diet soda are likely eating other foods that elevate risk of metabolic disorders,” says lead study author Jennifer Nettleton, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at The University of Texas School of Public Health, in Houston. “People drinking diet soda are likely to miscalculate the amount of caloric savings, thus over-consuming other foods, resulting in greater overall energy consumption.”

Here’s how to avoid health problems that come in a calorie-free can:

• Water yourself! Hands down, the best thing you can drink is water. Although this study didn’t find a link between sugar-sweetened soda and diabetes as many other studies have, Nettleton says that’s not a reason for diet drinkers to go back to sugar-swamped beverages. Water should be your drink of choice. Beyond that, check the Beverage Guidance Panel’s tiered system to help you make the healthiest choices.

• Look at the whole picture. If diabetes is a real threat to you, chances are your entire problem isn’t coming from a soda can or bottle, but rather a slew of factors. To keep your blood sugar steady, eat a balanced diet with as little refined sugar as possible (replace processed foods with whole, organic vegetables and fruits), cut out soda and sweetened juices containing little real fruit juice, and get more active, even if that means walking in 10-minute spurts several times a day. Make lots of small changes you can stick to, rather than a single dramatic one. “Lifestyle changes must be moderate and sustainable, and focus on all aspects of diet—not just single food and beverage entities—and include physical activity and stress management,” says Nettleton. “Too many marketing gimmicks exist that suggest there is a single ‘panacea’ to prevent obesity and its related morbidities. This simply isn’t the case.”

9 Disturbing Side Effects of Soda

Food and Nutrition

 

9 Disturbing Side Effects of Soda

By Emily Main

Need a reason to break your soda addiction? We've got 9, and they're not pretty.

                               

Soda's Bittersweet Side Effects

If you've been reading health magazines and websites for any length of time, you've read a litany of reasons why soda is bad for you. It's nothing but sugar water. It's devoid of any nutritional value. It leads to obesity and diabetes. But we've dug up nine other disturbing facts about what soda does to your body, besides packing on the pounds, that don't get much attention in broader discussions about soda and its impact on your health.

 

                            

Weird Fat in Weird Places

In the latest bad news for the soda industry, Danish researchers discovered that drinking non-diet soda leads to dramatic increases in fat buildup around your liver and your skeletal muscles, both of which can contribute to insulin resistance and diabetes. The study revealed that people who drank a regular soda every day for six months saw a 132 to 142 percent increase in liver fat, a 117 to 221 percent jump in skeletal fat, and about a 30 percent increase in both triglyceride blood fats and other organ fat. Their consumption also led to an 11 percent increase in cholesterol, compared with the people who drank other beverages such as water or milk.

                                  

Diet-Soda Belly
It's not surprising that drinking all the sugar in sodas would cause weight gain, but what is surprising is that even diet soda will pack on the pounds: Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center monitored 475 adults for 10 years, and found that those who drank diet soda had a 70 percent increase in waist circumference over the 10-year study, compared with those who didn't drink any soda. Those who drank more than two diet sodas per day saw a 500 percent waist expansion! A separate study the same researchers conducted on mice suggested that it was the aspartame, which raised blood glucose levels, that caused the weight gain; when your liver encounters too much glucose, the excess is converted to body fat.


 

                              

Caramel Cancer-Causers 

In 2011, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban the artificial caramel coloring used to make Coke, Pepsi, and other colas brown. The reason: Two contaminants in the coloring, 2-methylimidazole and 4-methylimidazole, have been found to cause cancer in animals, a threat the group says is unnecessary, considering that the coloring is purely cosmetic. According to California's strict Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, just 16 micrograms per person per day of 4-methylimidazole is enough to pose a cancer threat, and most popular brown colas, both diet and regular, contain 200 micrograms per 20-ounce bottle.

 
 

                                 

Accelerated Aging

Diet or regular, all colas contain phosphates, or phosphoric acid, a weak acid that gives colas their tangy flavor and improves their shelf life. Although it exists in many whole foods, such as meat, dairy, and nuts, too much phosphoric acid can lead to heart and kidney problems, muscle loss, and osteoporosis, and one study suggests it could trigger accelerated aging. The study, published in a 2010 issue of the FASEB Journal, found that the excessive phosphate levels found in sodas caused lab rats to die a full five weeks earlier than the rats whose diets had more normal phosphate levels—a disturbing trend considering that soda manufacturers have been increasing the levels of phosphoric acid in their products over the past few decades.

                                  

Water Pollution 

The artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas don't break down in our bodies, nor do wastewater-treatment plants catch them before they enter waterways, researchers have found. In 2009, Swiss scientists tested water samples from wastewater-treatment plants, rivers and lakes in Switzerland and detected levels of acesulfame K, sucralose, and saccharin, all of which are, or have been, used in diet sodas. A recent test of 19 municipal water supplies in the U.S. revealed the presence of sucralose in every one. It's not clear yet what these low levels are doing to people, but past research has found that sucralose in rivers and lakes interferes with some organisms' feeding habits

                                     

Mountain Dew Mind

  
Dentists have a name for the condition they see in kids who drink too much Mountain Dew. They wind up with a "Mountain Dew Mouth," full of cavities caused by the drink's excessive sugar levels. "Mountain Dew Mind" may be the next medical condition that gets named after the stuff. An ingredient called brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, added to prevent the flavoring from separating from the drink, is an industrial chemical used as a flame retardant in plastics. Also found in other citrus-based soft drinks and sports drinks, the chemical has been known to cause memory loss and nerve disorders when consumed in large quantities. Researchers also suspect that, like brominated flame retardants used in furniture foam, the chemical builds up in body fat, possibly causing behavioral problems, infertility, and lesions on heart muscles over time.

                               

Whacked-Out Hormones 

It's not just the soda that's causing all the problems. Nearly all aluminum soda cans are lined with an epoxy resin called bisphenol A (BPA), used to keep the acids in soda from reacting with the metal. BPA is known to interfere with hormones, and has been linked to everything from infertility to obesity and diabetes and some forms of reproductive cancers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pegged soda cans, along with restaurant, school, and fast-food meals, as a major source of exposure to the chemical. And while Pepsi and Coke are currently locked in a battle to see which company can be the first to develop a 100 percent plant-based-plastic bottle—which they're touting as "BPA free"—neither company is willing to switch to BPA-free aluminum cans.

                                

Dead Birds 

Before you switch from cans to bottles, though, take a look at the photographs of Chris Jordan, an environmentalist and photographer who visited the Midway Atoll area in 2009. It's close to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a mass of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean where things like soda caps (which often aren't recycled) and plastic fish netting float just beneath the surface of the water. Birds, sea turtles, and other wildlife mistake the debris for food and eat large quantities of the plastic, which they are unable to digest. Ultimately, the plastic causes them to starve to death. It's estimated that thousands of animals die this way every year. 

                                      

Unknown Side Effects of GMOs
 
Take a look at the ingredients list for any soda and chances are most of those ingredients are derived from corn. As much as 88 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified to resist toxic pesticides or engineered to create pesticides within the plant itself. Thanks to lax government safety regulations, and tight corporate control over who gets to test these proprietary seeds, there are no human studies that can prove or disprove whether these crops are safe. Independent scientists have found that, in animals, genetically modified crops, or GMOs, are linked to digestive tract damage, accelerated aging, and even infertility. Most recently, scientists in France found that rats fed GMO corn for their entire two-year lifespan developed mammary tumors and died earlier than rats that ate non-GMO corn their entire lives.

The Truth About Functional Beverages

Beverages

 

The Truth About Functional Beverages

 MensHealth.com

10. The Truth About Function: Urban Detox: 

 

100 calories, 0 g fat, 24 g sugars


Researchers in New Orleans found that subjects given prickly pear extract, one of the compounds at work in this bottle, experienced fewer hangover symptoms after a night of heavy drinking. Among the dose of B vitamins found in this bottle is four times your daily value of B6, a vitamin that tends to suffer depletion at the hands of a long night of drinking. However, water still remains the best antidote for a hangover, and it doesn't carry the 100 calories this drink does.

9. The Truth About Glaceau Vitaminwater Defense Raspberry-Apple : 

 

50 calories, 0 g fat , 13 g sugars


Any boon this bottle provides to your immune system is coming from two primary ingredients: vitamin C and zinc. Vitamin C has a reputation for fighting the common cold, but studies don't fully support the claim. Zinc, on the other hand, might be a little more promising. A recent study found that daily zinc supplementation could increase the body's production of T cells, which help the body fight viral and bacterial infections. Problem is, the study used a daily dose of 15 milligrams—about four times as much as you get from a bottle of Defense.

 

8. The Truth About SoBe Lifewater Strawberry Kiwi Bliss : 

 

40 calories, 0 g fat, 10 g sugars


Aside from the standard B vitamins that lace nearly every functional beverage on the market, this one has the added bonus of two extracts: lemon balm and hibiscus. The good news is, one of these herbs has a high likelihood of reducing stress. The bad news? There's probably not enough of it in this bottle for you to notice. As for hibisucs, its only real value is in its ability to fight hypertension, but again, positive effects have only been found using doses much larger than what's provided here.

 

7. The Truth About Zico Pure Coconut Water: 

 

60 calories, 0 g fat, 14 g sugars

Coconut water offers the electrolytes of Gatorade with less sugar and no artificial add-ins.

 

6. The Truth About Propel Berry : 

 

30 calories, 0 g fat, 6 g sugars


The original functional beverage is also among the best. It's low in sugar, contains no artificial coloring, and carries a bevy of antioxidents.

 

5. The Truth About Gatorade G Orange : 

 

80 calories, 0 g fat, 21 g sugars


Gatorade is loaded with artificial coloring & sugar! While G2 used to contain high-fructose corn syrup, the company has recently revised their formula to eliminate the inexpensive sweetener. But the HFCS was, of course, replaced with another type of sugar. Gatorade is perfectly fine as an fast energy source before, during, and after hard exercise, but like any other sugary beverage, it can lead to weight gain if you’re a couch potato who’s guzzling it by the gallon.

 

4. The Truth About Gatorade G2 Glacier Freeze : 

 

45 calories, 0 g fat, 12 g sugars


Fewer than half the calories of traditional Gatorade, but with all of the same electrolytes to encourage full hydration.

 

3. The Truth About Glaceau Smart Water : 

 

0 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g sugars


Zero sugar, zero calories. Just water and electrolytes. Now that's refreshing.


Replace half of what you drink with water and you'll save 23 pounds per year! Start by avoiding everything on this list of The 20 Worst Drinks in America.

 

2. The Truth About Function: Light Weight Blueberry Raspberry :

11 calories, 0 g fat, 2 g sugars


The bottle boasts both EGCG and resveratrol, the star nutrients from the world of tea and wine.

 

1. The Truth About SoBe Lifewater Blackberry Grape Enlighten :

90 calories, 0 g fat, 23 g sugars

Any "water" with more than 20 grams of sugar has no place in your diet.