Soft drinks: Unsafe beverages

Reading the rest of this article may be the best use you've ever made of 5 minutes. Yeah, we know Pepsi will never sponsor an ad on this site.

But your health is more important to us.

It's tragic that the "beverage" industry shoves this toxic brew at human beings. Let's take a closer look at what it does.

The carbonation in all soft drinks causes calcium loss in the bones through a three-stage process:

1. The carbonation irritates the stomach.

2. The stomach "cures" the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.

3. The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.

But, the story doesn't end there. Another problem with most soft drinks is they also contain phosphoric acid (not the same as the carbonation, which is carbon dioxide mixed with the water). This substance also causes a drawdown on the store of calcium.

So, soft drinks soften your bones (actually, they make them weak and brittle) in three ways:

1. Carbonation reduces the calcium in the bones.

2. Phosphoric acid reduces the calcium in the bones.

3. The beverage replaces a calcium-containing alternative, such as milk or water. Milk and water are not excellent calcium sources, but they are sources.

Diabetes in a can

The picture gets worse when you add sugar to the soft drink. The sugar, dissolved in liquid, is quickly carried to the bloodstream, where its presence in overload quantities signals the pancreas to go into overdrive. The pancreas has no way of knowing if this sugar inrush is a single dose or the front-end of a sustained dose. The assumption in the body's chemical controls is the worst-case scenario. To prevent nerve damage from oxidation, the pancreas pumps out as much insulin as it can.

Even so, it may not prevent nerve damage.

But, this heroic effort of the pancreas has a hefty downside. The jolt of insulin causes the body to reduce the testosterone in the bloodstream, and to depress further production of it. In both men and women, testosterone is the hormone that controls the depositing of calcium in the bones. You can raise testosterone through weight-bearing exercise, but if you are chemically depressing it via massive sugar intake (it takes very small quantities of sugar to constitute a massive intake, because refined sugar is not something the human body is equipped to handle), then your body won't add calcium to the bones.

Add this to what we discussed above, and you can see that drinking sweetened colas is a suicidal endeavor. And now you know why bone damage formerly apparent only in the very old is now showing up in teenagers.

Cancer in a can

In the spring of 2005, research showed a strong correlation between esophageal cancer and the drinking of carbonated beverages. We aren't providing extensive detail here yet, because the subject is still rolling through the medical community.

Basically, it works like this:

1. You drink soda.

2. It makes you burp (acid reflux, actually).

3. The burping carries acid into the esophagus, causing lesions.

4. The lesions become cancerous.

So, maybe it's not so bad if you sip sodas instead of guzzle them. By the time this issue settles out through double blind studies (rather than statistical analysis only), that is probably what researchers will conclude. It's common sense.

Of course, the softdrink companies have conducted their own flawed studies using flawed methods to obtain the flawed results they want.

This way, they can deny that their toxic products also cause esophageal cancer in addition to other diseases their beverages cause. I wonder if these folks have flawed sleep at night, or if they are just psychopathic?

Do a Yahoo or Google search on softdrinks + esophageal cancer, and you'll get several thousand pages of results. Most of the articles say softdrinks "may" cause esophageal cancer. And that's true--in the sense that lying down on a railroad track "may" get you run over by a train or holding a revolver with one bullet in it and pulling the trigger "may" blow your brains out. It's a game of chance. How many chances do you want to take?

You can search online for data on the number of esophageal cancer cases per year and the startling increase in this cancer occurring with the huge ramp-up in soft drink consumption. This disease was unheard of two generations ago--now, it's common. You can also search for the source reports and articles. But, that's not really necessary because basic science is at work here:

1. Mechanical damage to cells is a huge risk factor for cancer. It's why asbestos particles, for example, cause lung cancer.

2. Soft drinks cause acid reflux (stomach acid rising up past the esophageal valve). This is more pronounced when the body is horizontal (as in sleeping), but the sheer volume of soft drinks consumed in the USA means the acid reflux is well past the danger point. Any time you ingest a gassy drink, you are going to get belching--and acid into the esophagus. How much is too much? The research doesn't say where the limit is--it only shows that most Americans are far, far, far past it.

3. Stomach acid dissolves tissue--that's its purpose. The stomach lining does not extend into the esophagus, so the lower esophagus gets damaged by acid far more frequently in soft drink users than in non soft drink users. This results in a radical increase in cell mutations, along with a far higher level of free radicals.

This isn't an attack on the Coca-Cola or Pepsi corporations. It's a revealing of the truth about all carbonated beverages. This has been widely reported in many authoritative sources.

Remember, soft drinks Kill.

Let's compare soft drinks to water:

Soft drinks

1. The salt in these "beverages" may reduce the amount of water in your cells. Salt increases dehydration, which is why sailors don't drink seawater.

2. The sugar in these "beverages" (other than the diet kind) increases hunger. 3. All sodas promote the symptoms of daytime fatigue, mid-day munchies, leg and toe cramps, and inability to mentally focus. The insulin response from the sugary versions compounds them.

4. The obesity and nutritional deficiencies typically suffered by heavy soda drinkers bring on back and joint pain.

5. Sodas cause the body to lose water, thereby promoting the symptoms of dehydration.

6. The various colorings and other substances in sodas aren't noted for cancer prevention.

Water

1. The National Institute of Health reports that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. However, this figure is likely understated.

In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.

Even mild dehydration will slow down your metabolism, speed up aging, reduce resistance to disease, and reduce muscle recovery after exercise.

2. One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

3. Lack of water is a major trigger.

4. Research indicates drinking half a gallon of water a day would significantly ease back and joint pain for 80% of sufferers.

5. A 2% drop in the amount of water retained in the body (other than as subcutaneous or intercellular water due to excess sodium) can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on printed or video text.

6. The NIH says drinking a quart of water daily reduces the risk of colon cancer by 45%, reduces the risk of breast cancer by 79%, reduces the risk of bladder cancer by 50%.