BY ELAINE PASQUA
The Skinny on Soda
Are you starting your day off with a can of soda? Do you keep track of how much you consume in a day, in a week? Almost half of all Americans drink at least one can of soda per day, yet it has no nutritional value. Soda is nothing but sugar water and it leads to many health problems. For 13 years I worked as dental hygienist, so I would like to start off with its effects on the teeth. A 12 ounce can of soda contains between 9 and 13 teaspoons of sugar. Darker sodas like Coke and Pepsi fall in the 9 to 10 teaspoon range while sweeter sodas such as orange contain 13! Sugar may not be listed as an ingredient; it comes in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener which is second on the list. I am just talking about a 12 ounce can; imagine the amount of sugar in a super-sized drink!
Sugar is acidic. When someone eats or drinks anything containing sugar, the PH of the saliva drops from neutral to acid. It remains acidic until 20 minutes after the person consumes it. So if you take a half hour to drink a can of soda, the teeth are sitting in an acid bath for a total of 50 minutes. That acid eats through the enamel and causes tooth decay, leading to those dreaded cavities. It is important to take care of your teeth. Besides contributing to your appearance, your teeth are the first in line of a complex digestive system. If the food is not chewed well, it is more difficult to digest and absorb the optimal levels of nutrients into the body.
Dentists refer to the high cavity rate of their patients who drink a lot of Mountain Dew as “Mountain Dew Mouth� because of its excessive sugar level. Now there is a concern as to what it does to the mind. One ingredient brominated vegetable oil, or BVO prevents separation of the fla-
voring. When consumed in large quantities, it is known to cause memory loss and nerve disorders. BVO can build up in body fat, and it is suspected of causing behavioral problems, infertility, and lesions on heart muscles. Soda also decalcifies your bones. The carbonation in soda irritates the stomach lining. The
body responds by pulling out its own antacid, calcium, which is directly drawn from the blood. The blood then needs to replenish its supply to maintain brain and muscular function by pulling the calcium from the bones. The darker sodas contain phosphoric acid which also draws calcium from the bones.
Esophageal cancer is on the rise in this country. The stomach contains acid which dissolves tissue. The cells lining the stomach are much different than the ones in the esophagus. The carbonation in soda triggers belching. This forces the stomach acids into the esophagus, leading to irritation and mutations which create lesions in the lower section. These lesions can eventually turn into esophageal cancer.
Soda contributes to a buildup of fat around your liver and skeletal muscles. People who drank one soda every day for 6 months experienced a 123% increase in liver fat. The buildup of fat in the liver can lead to insulin resistance and diabetes. Insulin regulates the amount of sugar in the blood. Within 20 minutes of ingesting soda
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insulin levels in the body skyrocket. The blood pressure rises because the liver deposits more sugar in the bloodstream. One soda a day contributes to a 20% increase in heart attacks over a 22 year period. Women who drank soda every day compared to those who drank other beverages experience high levels of triglycerides, (the fat in our blood) leading to an 11 percent increase in cholesterol. Many believe that if they drank diet soda they would be spared of the weight gain. A study from the University of Texas monitored 475 adults for 10 years. Those who drank diet soda had a 70 percent increase in waist circumference compared to those who did not drink any soda. The people who drank more than two diet sodas a day saw a 500 percent increase in waist size! A separate study found it was the aspartame that raised blood glucose levels and caused the weight gain. When the liver encounters too much sugar the excess is converted to body fat.
Water quenches the thirst and hydrates the body more effectively than soda. Fruit juices can contain higher amounts of sugar than water but they contain nutrients and are far healthier. Sometimes I feel like a broken record, but I often say you are what you eat, or in this case, what you drink.
Questions on college life? Email me at elaine@elainepasqua.com www.campusactivitiesmagazine.com