Soft drinks are being marketed with frenzy blitz in the media, with marketing messages directed at the youth mainly. Soft drinks are also formulated to make their intake addictive. Once you hooked to any of the brands, you will always want to drink it, not minding the hazard it constitutes to your health.
For instance, eating a meal of white rice or fufu with beef in soup made with ocean of palm oil and washed down with one or two bottles of soft drink is a great assault a large quantity of insulin and digestive enzymes to digest every item in such a meal. Yet, spicing meals with soft drink on a daily basis as many Nigerians do exerts too much pressure on the pancreas and hastens its exhaustion. No wonder there is an epidemic of type 2 diabetes in our country.
People addicted to soft drinks rarety stop gulping them unless they experience the 'bitter taste' of there sweet drinks. But how bitter is the taste of soft drinks? This question can be best answered by the tragic experiences of two people - a student at the University of Delhi, India and a Lagos-based political.
There was a competition among the students of University of Delhi as to who could drink the most bottles of a popular brand of soft drinks. The winner, a boy, drank eight bottles but died soon after his victory. What could be bitter than the loss of life through a drink certified fit for human consumption?
The bitter experience of the Lagos-based politician with soft drinks has not cost him his life but his travails are not what anybody would wish to have. He is battling with heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis that not only incapacitate him physically, but also drain his life saving. But how did he get into these life-threatening problem? While jostling for elective position during the two-partly ststem of the Babangida era, he hardly had time to eat due to endless meetings and intrigues that characters Nigerian politics. Rather, he resorted to taking soft drinks - six jumbo bottles (orobo) of one of the popular brands everyday. His body weight ballooned, causing heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis. He had suffered near fatal heart attack in the course of his travails. Even with a university degree in science, he has no faint idea as to the inherent danger in using soft drinks as a substitute for meals.
Due to a lack of died education many people who gulp soft drinks daily do not know that these drinks are a harbinger of misery in different forms - obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cance, multiple sclerosis and poor vision.
But what exactly makes soft drinks dangerous stuff? Soft drinks contain refined sugar or its substitute, which increase the risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart problem. A study done at the Boston University School of medicine indicated that drinking more than one bottle of drink a day is associated with 50 per cent increase risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The lead author of the study, Ramachandran Vasaan, said, "Soft drinks carry the same risk whether they are low-calorie or regular."
The refined sugar in soft drinks also poses other threats to human health. According to a Japanese researcher, Dr Jin Otsuka, "the more refined sugar in the diet the greater the incidence of myopia."
Some soft drinks are also made with non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharine, which are not toxic, but have also been linked to a number of health disorder. According to research done by Arizona State University's Biochemical Department, aspartame has been found to cause shooting paid, numbness, cramps, dizziness, headache, brain seizure, joint pain, blurred vision, memory loss and enlarged kidney and liver. Soft drinks also contain caffeine, which depletes magnesium and makes drinkers vulnerable to construction of blood vessels depletion of key hormones, elevated blood sugar level, heart problem, and brain dysfunction.
The acids in soft drinks disrupt the alkaline-acid balance of the body, thus causing acidosis that triggers ulcers, arthritis, diabetes and cancer.
The common chemical additive in soft drinks is phosphate, a heavy-duty iron blocker. Therefore, heavy drinkers of soft drinks may be deficient in iron, a condition that promotes development of tumour. The prevalence of uterine fibrods, benign tumours among women may be associated with high consumption of soft drinks. While it is incontrovertible that tumour can develop in any part of the body, including the breast, how is the current war against breast cancer in our country addressing the possible link of over-consumption of soft drinks to this scourge?
Soft drinks are bottled with carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism that you and I must exhale to be in perfect health. But those who prefer soft drinks to water are increasing carbon dioxide, while decreasing oxygen in their body system. Yet, inadequate oxygen supply to the body could cause impairment of the immune system and gradual cellular death in the heart, kidneys, eyes and the brain. In fact, the brain suffers the most telling effect of low level of oxygen in the body. It needs about 20 per cent of oxygen inhaled to function optimally. But as we age, the blood vessel that supplies the brain with oxygen tends to clog and this may cause stroke, memory loss, senility and nerve damage. A study by a Japanese scientist, Kazuhiko Asai, found that all diseases are caused by insufficient oxygen supply to the area of the body where it is needed. The take home message is: we could prevent a number of diseases, which cause misery and ultimately shorten life by avoiding soft drinks.
Soft drinks and diabetes
Several research studies have implicated soft drinks, either regular or diet, which contain certain chemical and refined sugar, or its substitute aspartame to increased rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart problems. The latest of such studies from the United States indicated that drinking more than one bottle of soft drink a day is associated with 50 per cent increase in metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a condition characterised by central obesity, hypertension and disturbed glucose and insulin metabolism. This syndrome increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases CVD, says the study. The lead author of the study, "Soft drinks carry the same risk whether they are low-calorie or regular. Drinking a bottle of soft drinks per day will ultimately trigger diabetes."
Diet soda and stroke
Although replacing sugar drinks with diet soda seems like a smart solution for keeping weight down, a heart-healthy goal, it turns out that diet soda is likely a major bad guy when it comes to stroke.
People who drink a diet soda a day may up their stroke risk by 48 per cent. A Columbia University study presented at the American Stroke Association's 2011 international Stroke Conference followed 2,500 people ages 40 and older and found that daily diet soda drinkers had 60 percent more strokes, heart attack and coronary artery disease than those who did not drink diet soda. Researcher don't know exactly how diet ups stoke risk-and are following up with further studies - but nutritionists are cautioning anyone concerned about stroke to cut out diet soda pop.
TIPS
* You need to walk for seven hours to burn one bottle of orobo (giant sized soft drink).
* Soft drinks deplete oxygen in the body
* Soft drinks deplete magnesium thiamine
* Soft drinks increase acids in the body, causing acidic PH
* Soft drinks block absorption of iron in the body
* Soft drinks dehydrate body cells
* Soft drinks impair brain and netves
* Soft drinks trigger and aggravate ulcers and fibroids
* Soft drinks deplete iodine, thus causing hypothyroid condition, which makes make many disease intractable.
* A bottle of soft drink contains 10 teaspoon of sugar. Many people, including children, drink three, four or five bottles daily.
* Harmful components of soft drinks include sugar, inorganic acids, caffeine, bromide, carbon dioxide, chemical preservatives, phosphates, artificial sweeteners (aspartame) and chemical colouring.
