Does anybody know how bad soda is for your body? I am trying to find some reference sites that talk about it, but haven't had much luck. Does it mess with your metabolism while you eat? (Take longer to process foods?)

Thanks!

The short answer is that it f's up everything it touches. I haven't a direct source, and heard this about third-hand a few weeks ago, but apparently a recent study rated the effects of soft drinks on your teeth, and it turns out the clear ones (e.g. 7-Up, Sprite) are the worst. Coca-Cola can be used to polish metal, and remember that even if you happened to stab yourself with a hypodermic needle in a can of Pepsi, you're safe inasmuch as the soft drink is so acidic as to kill pretty much any infectious agent that might have been on the needle. Root beer, it turns out, rated the best in this alleged recent study I haven't seen.

As to the longer answer, well, I'll Google it later today and see what comes up.

Obviously how bad it is for you depends on how much you drink it. It's like caffinated liquid candy. There's a shitload of sugar in it. So yeah, it's really bad for your teeth and the other thing is, since it's liquid, it's easy to down vast quantities of it. A few sodas could replace a filling meal, though people often use soda to complement a meal.

Subconsciously people think: It's liquid, it's not really a food, but calorically, it is.

Forget about calories.

Healthwise -- believe it or not -- most juices are more damaging to the body. They're not quite as bad on the teeth, but they're still pretty bad.

When you drink anything with such a high amount of dissolved sugar, its like an instant shock to the body. Instead of catabolizing it from more complex sources, the cells have to absorb it immediately, giving you an insulin spike. Your blood sugar goes from extremely high to extremely low in a short period of time because of the spike, and thats what causes the damage to your body (minus what happening to your ass). Experience too many of these spikes and you're screwed for life.

Ideally, you want to keep your blood sugar as regular as possibly. It shouldn't look like a tangent function. More like a stretched out sine for best health. Pop is ok once in a while, but if you drink it regularly, not only are you going to have tooth decay, you're setting yourself up for diabetes and other complications of insulin resistance.

I heard an estimate that 1 in 3 from my generation are going to get diabetes, and most other people are going to have some type of insulin resistance. Its pretty bad

That is why I drink pure apple juice, orange juice, white grape juice, lemonaid or water. The soda is nothing more than crap loaded with sugar that cost about a penny to make. Look at the ingrediants on the soads you drink then look up what all those ingrediants are and their uses, you'll be suprised as to what your putting into yourself.

Coca-Cola can be used to polish metal, and remember that even if you happened to stab yourself with a hypodermic needle in a can of Pepsi, you're safe inasmuch as the soft drink is so acidic as to kill pretty much any infectious agent that might have been on the needle.

I read that if you leave a nail in a liter of Coke overnight, that it'll make it go bye-bye. It's also the reason why the highway patrol carries a few liters in their trunks to clean up bloodstains where highway accidents took place. Just pour and forget.


Root beer, it turns out, rated the best in this alleged recent study I haven't seen.

Cool. Usually if I'm going to drink soda, it's root beer. Water, orange juice, fruit punch, lemonade, and iced tea is what I tend to drink.

- N

it doesnt hissolve nails, i have left my teeth in coke for months at a time to test this theory, i have had no results so far, but that may be due to it being the same coke and therefoer going flat after a period of time, well, ill have to start a new experiment, i got plenty of teeth left in the jar :D

A Link:


Liquid Candy - http://www.cspinet.org/sodapop/liquid_candy.htm

I'd say Apendrapew has it: "Liquid candy". Scroll down through the CSPInet page to find the health effects; the first portion is consumption statistics, and those are frightening enough.

I have been unable to find the study I referred to earlier, and will have to ask the person who told me about it.

And there's another side to all of this. From "Soft Drinks By The Numbers (http://www.saveharry.com/bythenumbers.html)":


In 1999, 44 billion cans and bottles from soft drinks were thrown into landfills. Given the Coca-Cola Co.'s 44 percent market share, that means that 19 billion cans and bottles with Coca-Cola Co. labels were wasted—53.8 million a day, 37,000 every minute. Those Coca-Cola Co. bottles and cans represent enough energy to light 1.47 million homes - a city about the size of Los Angeles - for a year. Source: Container Recycling Institute, July 2001.

SaveHarry.com (http://www.saveharry.com/bythenumbers.html)
____________________

Notes:


SaveHarry.com. "Soft Drinks By The Nubmers". See http://www.saveharry.com/bythenumbers.html

See Also -


Jacobson, Michael F. "Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks are Harming Americans' Health". CSPInet.org. See http://www.cspinet.org/sodapop/liquid_candy.htm

Sorry for the delay in replying to this thread. It got moved and I couldn't find it.

Thanks for all of your replies. I went ahead personally and stopped drinking soda pretty much altogether. I was drinking 2 to 3 cans a day of sierra mist and then cut it back to 1 a day and then stopped altogether for about 2 1/2 weeks now. I had 1 soda at a party and it made my stomach hurt after not drinking it for just 1 week. I don't know, but I don't think it is that healthy to drink the soda. Im checking out the references links in a moment.