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I know you’ve seen them – pallets of soda pop stacked out front of your local chain supermarket, particularly during summer months. Our soft drink consumption has become so enormous that supermarkets have to pile their supply on pallets outside the store because they don't have room for them inside the store (not to mention that there's a percentage of product that the supermarkets are willing to accept will be stolen from the unguarded displays). There are many huge problems affecting our health today. We no longer eat fresh, natural whole organic nutrient-dense foods; instead our diets are now dominated by processed foods devoid of nutrients and filled with toxic chemicals, synthetic fats and artificial sweeteners. Neglecting the critical nutrient of movement or exercise in our lives, which like fresh foods, is genetically essential for health, the vast majority of people now live sedentary lives which further hastens the onset of virtually all diseases. As a result, the current statistics are staggering: 1 out of every 2 people will die of heart disease; 1 out of every 3 people will die from cancer; 1 out of every 4 people will develop diabetes; 60% of adults and 35% of children are obese (by the way, obesity is the defining risk factor for heart disease, cancer and diabetes). The most startling aspect of those statistics is that all of those diseases were nonexistent or very rare occurrences in earlier times amongst the hunter-gatherer cultures that determined the genetic code that our bodies live by today. In other words, they’re lifestyle diseases. One of the central players in this cultural health maelstrom (def: a situation marked by confusion, turbulence, strong feelings, violence or destruction) is our nation's habit of consuming sweetened beverages that destroy our health - in particular, Americans love soda pop. Soft drink manufacturers make enough soda pop for every person to drink 54 gallons per year. That works out to be 576 12oz. cans per year or 1.6 cans per day. It also works out to be over 15 teaspoons of sugar (150 calories) per day. Making matters worse is that soda pop is most often sweetened using high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners, both of which have even greater health risks than sucrose or table sugar. By the way, eating 50 extra calories per day for five years will cause you to gain 50 pounds. Hopefully you are starting to understand the connection between the consequences of our lifestyle choices and their effect on our health (i.e. the ever-increasing diabetes and obesity epidemics). SODA POP DESTROYS YOUR HEALTH IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS: Soda pop causes calcium and bone loss: • When carbonated liquids go into the stomach (stomach cells are not genetically equipped to handle carbonation) the stomach responds by 'pulling' calcium from the blood creating an antacid to neutralize the carbonic acid; the body, with its incredible innate intelligence, knows that maintaining calcium levels in the blood is critical to many things including brain and muscle function, replenishes blood calcium levels by drawing calcium from bones. • The phosphoric acid in the soda pop also causes an imbalance in the delicate ratio of calcium-magnesium-phosphorus, causing the body again to draw calcium from the blood and bones to maintain this critical mineral balance. Soda pop causes diabetes and insulin resistance: • Twelve ounces of soda pop contains almost ten teaspoons of sugar; now we have super-sized servings in thirty two or even sixty-four ounce Big Gulps® which contain twenty-nine and fifty-three teaspoons of sugar respectively. This incredible dose of refined sugar is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream wreaking havoc with the body's ability to manage insulin production and blood glucose levels leading to diabetes, insulin resistance, heart disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Soda pop causes cancer: • Refined sugar intake is associated with increased cancer risk. • Because carbonated beverages contribute to acid reflux, drinking soda pop is associated with increased risk of esophageal cancer. Soda pop disrupts the critical pH of the body: • Soda is 100,000 times more acidic than water. The body's pH (the balance between alkalinity and acidity) must stay within a very narrow range; when the pH shifts the body will do virtually anything to correct it to avoid catastrophic breakdown in physiological function. The body neutralizes acidity by pulling minerals such as calcium out of the blood or wherever possible, including bone. This is yet another contributing cause of osteoporosis (another cause of osteoporosis is milk consumption - yikes, more on that later). Soda pop causes weight gain, contributing to the obesity epidemic, in three ways: • #1: Extra calories always cause weight gain, no matter how you look at it. The body stores excess carbohydrates as fat. As mentioned above, as little as 50 extra calories per day over a five year period will result in a fifty pound weight gain. • #2: When processed by the liver, fructose is preferentially converted to fat. • #3: Fructose doesn't cause the body's satiety mechanism (feeling satisfied) to be activated, as does glucose, so you will keep eating. Soda pop causes atherosclerosis (clogging/hardening of the arteries), high blood pressure, and heart disease: • Because of how fructose is converted into fat by the liver, soda pop consumption increases LDL lipids ("bad cholesterol") and decreases HDL ("good cholesterol"), leading to a build-up of plaque within arteries which narrow the blood vessels which leads directly to high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. Some people reading this will be thinking 'Isn't that a bit extreme; after all, what's more American than having a soft drink at a picnic or my son's baseball game?' (not to mention that soda is usually served with a hot dog or chips that have been deep fried, and a sandwich made with processed flour and cured meats - boy, we've got this disease-food thing down to a science don't we; unfortunately, an evil science). Or my favorite, 'I just have one once in a while - if it's in moderation it can't be that bad, can it?' There are two types of toxicity or poisoning: 1) Acute: resulting in vomiting, fainting, convulsions, death, etc.; 2) Slow or chronic accumulation of toxins which ultimately break down the body's physiological function. Soda pop falls into the second category (diet soda is even more toxic than the regular sugar-poison variety). (My cynical response to the "everything in moderation" paradigm is to ask 'Is it okay to do crystal meth or cheat on your spouse, in moderation?') IMPORTANT: Don't make the mistake thinking that diet sodas containing artificial sweeteners like sucralose (Splenda®) or aspartame (Nutrasweet®, Equal®) are safe - they are far from it; and they cause weight gain (if you think about it, who's always drinking diet soda? Yep, overweight people). Scientific research links artificial sweeteners with leukemia, brain cancer, migraines, depression, and blindness - more on that topic later. Make water your predominant beverage - it's what we are genetically designed to drink. You are what you eat (and what you don’t eat). As a practitioner and student of wellness for 25 years, Dr. Paul C. Kratka has learned one HUGE lesson – people are in denial about the consequences of their lifestyle habits and their present and future health. He is the creator of Dr. K’s Perfect Greens for Health, a delicious whole food nutritional source of natural vitamins and minerals. For truthful, actionable information about your health, visit http://www.drkratka.com.
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