Havoc soft drinks can wreak on your health

A woman taking a drink. A cool bottle of soft drink can be very refreshing. However, indulging in its regular intake can cause several havocs on your health, reports Sade Oguntola.

A soft drink is something that one reaches out for during a tiring journey or an exhaustive shopping ordeal. Children’s parties these days cannot hold without them. Soft drinks have taken a definitive place in our lives. Over the past two decades, there has been a great increase in the consumption of these beverages, which mostly consist of filtered water and refined sugars.

The market has been flooded with a number of brands targeted at various age groups. In addition, these soft drinks have taken the place of water, to quench thirst. The sizes of the bottles have also grown thus again increasing their intake.

Now there is a growing concern in the medical and scientific communities about the harmful effects associated with carbonated soft drinks. Scientific studies have shown that consuming 1 to 1.5 litres of soft drinks a day can increase an individual’s susceptibility to numerous health problems, a few of which are discussed below

Effects on sleeping pattern
Caffeine is present in soft drinks which when consumed in large amounts can cause diseases and disorders such as insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, irritability, and deviations from the normal heart rate. Researchers at Ohio State University followed 191 teenagers between the age of 14 and 16 for two weeks. They recorded their sleep patterns and daily intake of caffeinated drinks and foods and found that teenagers who drank larger amounts had disrupted sleep patterns.

They were more likely to wake during the night and sleep less. In addition, they tended to be more tired during the day compared to those who drank less fizzy drinks, they wrote in the journal, Paediatrics.

Gout
Consumption of sugar-sweetened soft drinks and fructose is strongly associated with increased risk of gout in men. Gout, caused by excess uric acid in the blood, is a joint disease that causes extreme pain and swelling.

In one of the largest studies of its kind, scientists in America and Canada followed more than 46,000 men aged over 40 with no previous history of gout over 12 years and monitored their intake of soft drinks, fruit and fruit juices.

The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, found that the risk of developing gout was 85 per cent higher among men who drank two or more cans of soft drinks a day than those who consumed less than one a month. This is greater than the risk associated with drinking spirits.

Cancer
Consumption of soft drinks with sugar or sweeteners such as aspartame has been linked with different cancers such as that of the cancer of the throat, lymphomas, leukaemia’s, and breast cancers and oesophageal cancer. The oesophagus is the lower part of the throat where it meets the stomach.

Researchers at the University of Hawaii and University of Southern California analysed food consumption data, including high intakes of sucrose and fructose from soft drinks, in 162,150 participants in the Hawaii-Los Angeles Multiethnic Cohort Study. They said its consumption might contribute to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer based on data from a cohort study.

Osteoporosis and Fracture
Researchers from the University of Oslo and Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that caffeine in cola drinks is linked to brittle bone disease

They found evidence that the caffeine in fizzy drinks helped to remove small amounts of calcium from the body, while decaffeinated cola appeared to have little effect.

Equally, a Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School study found that ninth- and 10-grade girls who drink soda pop have three times the risk of bone fractures compared with those who do not drink carbonated beverages.

Cola drinks contain phosphoric acid, which interferes with calcium metabolism and the building of bone mass, a process that apparently affects girls more than boys.

The difference becomes especially important as teen drinking of sodas rises steeply while the consumption of milk is dropping.

Tooth decay
The link between sugar consumption and tooth decay had been known for centuries. The bacteria in dental plaque feeds on sugar, and the acid produced by the bacteria attacks the protective enamel surface of the teeth, allowing tooth decay to proceed. People, who consume three or more glasses of aerated soft drinks a day, stand a greater chance of tooth decay leading on to tooth loss.

Diabetes
In a study of 91249 women followed for eight years, those who consumed one or more servings of soft drink per day were twice as likely as those who consumed less than one serving per month to develop diabetes over the course of the study. These effects were slightly lessened when various potential confounds, including BMI and energy intake were controlled. When diet soft drinks replaced sugar-sweetened soft drinks in the analysis, the increased risk was no longer present, suggesting that the risk was specific to sugar-sweetened soft drinks.

Kidney problems
Colas contain high levels of phosphoric acid, which has been linked to kidney stones and other renal problems. A team of scientists at the National Institutes of Health compared the dietary habits of 465 people with chronic kidney disease and 467 healthy people.

In a study published in the journal Epidemiology, the team after controlling for various factors, found that drinking two or more colas a day — whether artificially sweetened or regular — was linked to a two-fold risk of chronic kidney disease.

Their findings support the long-held notion that something about cola — the phosphoric acid, for example, or the ability of cola to pull calcium from bones — seems to increase the risk of kidney stones, renal failure and other conditions affecting the kidneys.

Increased blood pressure
A study assessed the effect of long-term supplementation with drinks and foods containing either sucrose or artificial sweeteners on the food intake and body weight in overweight subjects, in the October 2002 edition of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It found that overweight subjects who consumed fairly large amounts of sucrose (28% of energy), mostly as beverages, had increased energy intake, body weight, fat mass, and blood pressure after 10 weeks. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure increased in the sucrose group (by 3.8 and 4.1 mm Hg, respectively)

Obesity
Soft drinks are made up of filtered water, refined sugar and artificial additives and are completely devoid of any nutritional value. These drinks contribute to the calorie build- up because of their refined sugar content, resulting in weight gain in individuals who have crossed the line of moderate consumption.

Soft drink, like cigarettes and alcohol are best avoided. They are popular because they quickly become addictive.

•If you have a choice between aerated drinks or fresh fruit juices – order the juice.

• Don’t sip soft drinks but drink it from a straw. This keeps the contact with teeth to minimum.

• Keep an eye on your children who are more prone to excessive abuse of soft drinks leading to health problems.

Avoiding harmful food items can drastically minimize an individual’s chances of developing chronic illnesses. It would do well for all to follow a healthy dietary habit to live long, useful lives.