Give Up Soda
By Dr. Mercola
One of the most straightforward steps you can take to improve your health in the New Year is to give up soda, and with that I’m talking about both regular and diet varieties. The problem with soda stems from its high sugar content — particularly the liquid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) variety — and, in the case of diet, its artificial sweetener content, among other issues.
Research suggests sugary beverages are to blame for about 183,000 deaths worldwide each year, including 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 heart disease deaths and 6,000 cancer deaths.1 Even drinking one or more 250 ml (about 8 ounce) servings of soda per day raises your risk of Type 2 diabetes by 18 percent.2 Soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a leading source of added sugar in the U.S. diet, with 6 in 10 youth and 5 in 10 adults drinking at least one such beverage on any given day.3
Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states, “Frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with weight gain/obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, nonalcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and cavities, and gout, a type of arthritis.”4
However, the CDC only suggests that “limiting the amount of SSB intake can help individuals maintain a healthy weight and have a healthy diet,” stopping far short of advising Americans to ditch these unhealthy drinks to avoid chronic disease.
This isn’t entirely surprising, considering CDC director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald received $1 million in funding from Coca-Cola5 to combat childhood obesity during her six-year stint as commissioner of Georgia’s public health department and has a history of promoting the soda industry’s “alternative facts.” Her Coke-funded anti-obesity campaign focused on exercise. None of the recommendations involved cutting down on soda and junk food, yet research shows exercise cannot counteract the ill effects of a high-sugar (i.e., high soda) diet.
Health Risks of Drinking Soda
Sources and References
- 1 American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2013 Scientific Sessions
- 2 BMJ 2015;351:h3576
- 3, 4 CDC, Get the Facts, Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Consumption
- 5 Washington Post July 12, 2017
- 6 The New York Times January 13, 2017
- 7 World Health Organization March 4, 2015
- 8 The Guardian January 5, 2017
- 9 Harvard School of Public Health, Soft Drinks and Disease
- 10 Circulation. 2012 Apr 10;125(14):1735-41, S1.
- 11 JAMA. 2010 Nov 24;304(20):2270-8.
- 12 Obes Rev. 2013 Aug;14(8):606-19.
- 13 Consumer Reports May 24, 2017
- 14 Stroke. 2017 May;48(5):1139-1146.
- 15 Journal of General Internal Medicine January 27, 2012
- 16 Forbes April 27, 2017
- 17 MedicineNet.com March 29, 2014
- 18 Diabetes Care 2009 Apr; 32(4): 688-694.
- 19 WebMD January 8, 2013
- 20 Healthline April 11, 2017
- 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 23, 2013, vol. 110, no. 17
- 22 New York Times August 9, 2015
- 23 New York Times December 1, 2015
- 24, 25 The Russells January 12, 2017
- 26 CDC, Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight
- 27 Cardiovasc Hematol Agents Med Chem. 2013 Mar;11(1):25-37.
- 28 Behavior Change 2011
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