The ‘real thing’ can be really bad for you. If you’ve been trying to manage your weight, you know that one of the fastest and best ways to reduce weight gain is to stop drinking high-sugar pop and fruit juices.
The bottom-line reason is the off-the-scale sugar content of most brands of pop. A 355ml can of Coca-Cola has 39 grams of sugar, which is just shy of 10 teaspoons. The World Health Organization recently changed its recommendation for sugar consumption to no more than 5% of your daily calories, or about 6 teaspoons.
Sugary soft drinks are a major source the common health problems associated with high sugar consumption, including weight gain and tooth decay. But as they do more research into excessive sugar consumption, scientists are finding many other ways that sugar, and therefore sugary drinks, negatively affects our health and even reduces our life expectancy.
And if you think you are in the clear because you drink diet pop, think again. Not all the health risks of drinking pop are related to sugar. From being a diuretic to carcinogenic colouring, there are many unhealthy properties found in both regular and diet pop.
1. Increased Risk of Diabetes
The high sugar content of pop makes your pancreas work overtime to produce insulin to regulate your carbs and metabolism. Just like what happens if you’re constantly overworked, the added stress can affect your insulin production. Just 2 sugary drinks a day can increase your risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 25%.
2. Pop Causes Dehydration
The caffeine found in many sugary drinks, especially colas and energy drinks, is a diuretic, which promotes the production of urine. The extra water it takes to produce urine robs your body and organs of the hydration they need to properly absorb nutrients. It also increases inflammation in joints and makes it more difficult for your body to get rid of waste.
Caffeine in Diet Pop: This is one area that diet drinks are worse than regular varieties. Diet Pepsi Max has 82% more caffeine than regular Pepsi; 69mg versus 38mg. Diet Coke has 35% more caffeine than regular Coke.
3. Colouring Process Linked to Cancer & Vascular Diseases
The dark colour of colas is not its natural colour. It results from the reaction between sugar, ammonia and sulfites. The chemical reactions produce two types of methylimidazole, which have been found in studies to cause lung, liver, and thyroid cancer and leukemia. The caramel that contributes to the colour of colas is also linked to problems with your vascular health.
4. Excessive Calories
It would take the average adult over half an hour of brisk walking to burn off the extra calories they get from a single 355ml can of pop. The 156 calories from the sugar in a can of Coke is almost 10% of the recommended daily calories intake for the average adult woman.
5. Caffeine Reduces How Much Magnesium Your Body Absorbs
Magnesium has an essential role in more than 325 enzyme reactions n your body. Magnesium also helps your body detoxify itself, which means that, with reduced levels due to the consumption of regular and diet pop, you are more exposed to the risks caused by environmental chemicals, heavy metals and many other toxins.
Sugar seems to be everywhere in our lives. From ketchup to granola bars, it’s in many more foods than most people realize. But when you consider how much sugar is in pop, along with other ingredients, in both diet and regular varieties, that are linked with a number of serious health issues, and that they are all promoted to us with billions of dollars in marketing and advertising, you’ll realize the extent of the health-related threats posed by seemingly harmless drinks.
We would all do ourselves a favour to try to limit our consumption of regular and diet pop as much as possible. If you want to learn about other ways safely lose your weight, avoid other health risks in your diet and make sure you get the right nutrition, please call or visit your local Herbal One Centre and speak to one of our nutritional consultants.