Soft Drinks: Poison In A Can
This poison goes by many brand names, such
as Coca Cola and Pepsi. Generically, this poison is on the market
in formulations known as soda, pop, and soft drinks. It includes
all carbonated beverages--even carbonated plain water. The various substances
in sodas compound the problem, especially the typical formulations
with their carbonic acid or phosphoric acid.
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:
- The carbonation irritates the stomach.
- 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.
- 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:
Diabetes in a can
- Carbonation reduces the calcium in the
- Phosphoric acid reduces the calcium in
- The beverage replaces a calcium-containing
alternative, such as milk or water. Milk and water are not excellent
calcium sources, but they are sources.
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.
Cancer in a can
In the spring of 2005, research showed a strong
correlation between esophageal cancer and the drinking of carbonated
beverages. Without providing extensive detail, the mechanism works
- You drink soda.
- It makes you burp (acid reflux, actually).
- The burping carries acid into the esophagus,
- 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 likely what researchers will conclude.
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
Esophageal cancer was very rare two generations
ago--now, it's common. The basic mechanism works as follows:
- Mechanical damage to cells is a huge risk
factor for cancer. It's why asbestos particles, for example,
cause lung cancer.
- 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 of us are far, far, far past it.
- 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.
Reference Source 146