Soda, soda-pop, pop… these are all terms used to describe that bubbly carbonated liquid that tastes so good and refreshes a thirsty throat. Untold advertising dollars are spent to convince us to order it in a restaurant, bring it to picnics, or drink it by the “big gulp” size. However, absolutely none of it is good for us - hardly ever. I will concede that when a stomach is upset it can help. When I get car sick, pop usually helps. Having said that, I do hope we all know the damage that pop can do to our health. Regular pop has this nasty problem of too much sugar. Sugar is not good for us, there is no point in elaborating on that. The carbonated beverage itself is likely to weaken the bones because it is acidic and the body compensates by robbing your bones to keep your acid/base levels optimal.
This month will not only talk about soda pop and how it affects your health, but will also look at how science has studied it over the past fifteen years. It is a good example of how the phrase, “follow the science” means the ever- changing, evolving, not very reliable body of knowledge. In the year 2007 nutrition experts were just starting to realize not all calories had the same potential for weight gain or loss. Most people figured a certain number of calories were going to be burned just by your daily activities and if you ate that amount or less, you’d prevent weight gain. Things that had zero calories could not possibly cause weight gain. It turns out the main health problem for either diet or regular soda is called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of symptoms that can include excessive abdominal fat, high blood glucose levels, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides and low levels of high-density lipoprotein (the “good” cholesterol). People with three or more of these symptoms have double the normal risk of heart disease and diabetes.
For years people thought that the main bad ingredient of pop was the sugar, and now add to that the high fructose corn syrup that is
often used. Then science threw us a loop. In 2007, I wrote about studies that had been done that revealed people who consumed as little as one can of soda per day, either regular OR diet, had a forty-eight percent increased risk of metabolic syndrome. The observations noted that even consumers of diet pop had an increased risk of obesity and high blood pressure. It made no sense to the calories vs. weight gain theory. The science of that day said that was impossible. It just couldn’t be true. Yet it was.
The president and chief executive of the American Beverage Association spoke out that this study simply cannot be accurate. She is quoted to say, “It is scientifically implausible to suggest that diet soft drinks, a beverage that is ninety-nine percent water can cause weight gain or elevated blood pressure.” When reality is differing from your pre-conceived belief you need to check your premises, that is what good scientists must do. In reality, her opinion was unscientific, and that one percent of ingredients that wasn’t water were doing harm. This was a Harvard Medical School study done over four years. Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard Medical School said the findings were not unexpected, but the magnitude of the association was surprising. They had expected regular soda pop to have this association but not diet pop, which has zero calories.
They tried to blame other things: perhaps soda pop drinkers have poor eating habits, or they don’t exercise enough. The study was not trying to prove pop was healthy. It was meant to show it did no harm, when in fact, it did do harm. Researchers started with 2,400 middle-aged, white residents of Framingham, MA. Some of those participants already had metabolic syndrome, and they did already drink at least one soda per day. The team then focused on the more than 1,600 people who did not have metabolic syndrome at the beginning of the study. Those who drank at least one soda per day had a forty-four percent higher risk of developing the
syndrome during the four-year study. The 2007 article broke it down to these statistics. Those who drank at least one soda per day also had: a 1% greater risk of becoming obese, a 30 % higher risk of having a larger waistline (abdominal weight gain), a 25% higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar, a 32% greater risk of having low levels of good cholesterol and a trend toward increased risk of high blood pressure. These percentages were the same whether a subject drank regular or diet soda. Even when the authors set the controls to rule out that maybe pop drinkers were more sedentary, or ate more calories with saturated fats, trans-fats and lower fiber, they still found this increased risk. They theorized that the sweet taste of pop reduces the feeling of satiety, or that the pop drinkers snack more. None of the theories could be confirmed. The study had been sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Vasan was the main scientist to this the article, which ended with this quote from him, “Our task is to report associations. We do not claim that this is a causal link. It is up to scientists to help us understand this better.”
In an October 23, 2012 issue of Prevention magazine, an article listed seven side effects of drinking diet soda. Kidney problems were particular to diet soda drinkers but mainly the article said that it messed-up the metabolism. This was according to a 2008 study at the University of Minnesota of approximately 10,000 adults: just one diet soda a day was linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome. Bell fat and heart disease were listed as risks. A University of Texas Health Science Center study linked obesity and increased waistlines. The more diet pop that was consumed, the more weight was likely to be gained. More than two cans of diet pop daily increased waistlines by five hundred percent. This study pointed to something diet sodas contain that many regular sodas don’t, which is mold inhibitors; chemicals with the names of sodium benzoate, potassium benzoate. These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the
mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate them. Mitochondria are your energy producers. These preservatives have also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions.
An article quoting the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (dated 3-20-2015) said that people who drank diet soda gained almost triple the abdominal fat over nine years as those who didn’t drink diet soda. This study analyzed 749 people ages 65 or older. Belly fat, called visceral fat is associated with increased cardiovascular disease, inflammation and Type 2 diabetes. A study of mice showed that artificial sweeteners change the gut bacteria in mice in ways that made them vulnerable to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. Also, the mice research suggested that diet soda led to a drop in the appetite-regulating hormone leptin. Leptin inhibits hunger. This article had ‘experts’ from The Calorie Control Council, an association that represents the reduced-calorie food and beverage industry. They disagreed with the findings, no surprise. Another case of them saying it just can’t be true. Yet, it was true.
A March 1, 2022 article in the Colorado Springs Gazette contained some new information that must have gotten its start from those mice experiments. More than two servings a day of diet pop can contribute to a change in the gut biome. A 2019 study published by the National Library of Medicine’s National Institutes of Health looked at the effects of sweeteners. The researchers found that saccharine, sucralose (Splenda), and stevia change the composition of the microbiota. Another study, published in the peer-reviewed journal, Molecules, reported the six common artificial sweeteners approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including aspartame, sucralose, saccharine and acesulfame potassium-k were TOXIC to the digestive gut microbes of mice. If I haven’t convinced you to consider a switch to some other beverage by now, I would be surprised. Soda pop should not be consumed daily, if anything, let it be only an occasional treat.
This month will not only talk about soda pop and how it affects your health, but will also look at how science has studied it over the past fifteen years. It is a good example of how the phrase, “follow the science” means the ever- changing, evolving, not very reliable body of knowledge. In the year 2007 nutrition experts were just starting to realize not all calories had the same potential for weight gain or loss. Most people figured a certain number of calories were going to be burned just by your daily activities and if you ate that amount or less, you’d prevent weight gain. Things that had zero calories could not possibly cause weight gain. It turns out the main health problem for either diet or regular soda is called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of symptoms that can include excessive abdominal fat, high blood glucose levels, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides and low levels of high-density lipoprotein (the “good” cholesterol). People with three or more of these symptoms have double the normal risk of heart disease and diabetes.
For years people thought that the main bad ingredient of pop was the sugar, and now add to that the high fructose corn syrup that is
often used. Then science threw us a loop. In 2007, I wrote about studies that had been done that revealed people who consumed as little as one can of soda per day, either regular OR diet, had a forty-eight percent increased risk of metabolic syndrome. The observations noted that even consumers of diet pop had an increased risk of obesity and high blood pressure. It made no sense to the calories vs. weight gain theory. The science of that day said that was impossible. It just couldn’t be true. Yet it was.
The president and chief executive of the American Beverage Association spoke out that this study simply cannot be accurate. She is quoted to say, “It is scientifically implausible to suggest that diet soft drinks, a beverage that is ninety-nine percent water can cause weight gain or elevated blood pressure.” When reality is differing from your pre-conceived belief you need to check your premises, that is what good scientists must do. In reality, her opinion was unscientific, and that one percent of ingredients that wasn’t water were doing harm. This was a Harvard Medical School study done over four years. Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard Medical School said the findings were not unexpected, but the magnitude of the association was surprising. They had expected regular soda pop to have this association but not diet pop, which has zero calories.
They tried to blame other things: perhaps soda pop drinkers have poor eating habits, or they don’t exercise enough. The study was not trying to prove pop was healthy. It was meant to show it did no harm, when in fact, it did do harm. Researchers started with 2,400 middle-aged, white residents of Framingham, MA. Some of those participants already had metabolic syndrome, and they did already drink at least one soda per day. The team then focused on the more than 1,600 people who did not have metabolic syndrome at the beginning of the study. Those who drank at least one soda per day had a forty-four percent higher risk of developing the
syndrome during the four-year study. The 2007 article broke it down to these statistics. Those who drank at least one soda per day also had: a 1% greater risk of becoming obese, a 30 % higher risk of having a larger waistline (abdominal weight gain), a 25% higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar, a 32% greater risk of having low levels of good cholesterol and a trend toward increased risk of high blood pressure. These percentages were the same whether a subject drank regular or diet soda. Even when the authors set the controls to rule out that maybe pop drinkers were more sedentary, or ate more calories with saturated fats, trans-fats and lower fiber, they still found this increased risk. They theorized that the sweet taste of pop reduces the feeling of satiety, or that the pop drinkers snack more. None of the theories could be confirmed. The study had been sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Vasan was the main scientist to this the article, which ended with this quote from him, “Our task is to report associations. We do not claim that this is a causal link. It is up to scientists to help us understand this better.”
In an October 23, 2012 issue of Prevention magazine, an article listed seven side effects of drinking diet soda. Kidney problems were particular to diet soda drinkers but mainly the article said that it messed-up the metabolism. This was according to a 2008 study at the University of Minnesota of approximately 10,000 adults: just one diet soda a day was linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome. Bell fat and heart disease were listed as risks. A University of Texas Health Science Center study linked obesity and increased waistlines. The more diet pop that was consumed, the more weight was likely to be gained. More than two cans of diet pop daily increased waistlines by five hundred percent. This study pointed to something diet sodas contain that many regular sodas don’t, which is mold inhibitors; chemicals with the names of sodium benzoate, potassium benzoate. These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the
mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate them. Mitochondria are your energy producers. These preservatives have also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions.
An article quoting the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (dated 3-20-2015) said that people who drank diet soda gained almost triple the abdominal fat over nine years as those who didn’t drink diet soda. This study analyzed 749 people ages 65 or older. Belly fat, called visceral fat is associated with increased cardiovascular disease, inflammation and Type 2 diabetes. A study of mice showed that artificial sweeteners change the gut bacteria in mice in ways that made them vulnerable to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. Also, the mice research suggested that diet soda led to a drop in the appetite-regulating hormone leptin. Leptin inhibits hunger. This article had ‘experts’ from The Calorie Control Council, an association that represents the reduced-calorie food and beverage industry. They disagreed with the findings, no surprise. Another case of them saying it just can’t be true. Yet, it was true.
A March 1, 2022 article in the Colorado Springs Gazette contained some new information that must have gotten its start from those mice experiments. More than two servings a day of diet pop can contribute to a change in the gut biome. A 2019 study published by the National Library of Medicine’s National Institutes of Health looked at the effects of sweeteners. The researchers found that saccharine, sucralose (Splenda), and stevia change the composition of the microbiota. Another study, published in the peer-reviewed journal, Molecules, reported the six common artificial sweeteners approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including aspartame, sucralose, saccharine and acesulfame potassium-k were TOXIC to the digestive gut microbes of mice. If I haven’t convinced you to consider a switch to some other beverage by now, I would be surprised. Soda pop should not be consumed daily, if anything, let it be only an occasional treat.
