Soda and sports drinks lead to premature deaths

For the umpteenth time, you know how I feel about spending precious research dollars on things we already know. My only exception is for research focused on things we should already know…but that the big corporations running this country have gone to great lengths to bury.

So let me spell this one out for you: Soda kills—and so do the so-called “sports drinks” that people have been fooled into believing are healthy.

Clearly, this message isn’t getting through to people. Because they’re still drinking these drinks—and they’re still dying prematurely because of it.

So I’m hoping that the general public—and just as importantly, the country’s public health policy makers—will finally wake up and take notice. (And hopefully take some action, too.)

Death by sugary drink

A new study shows that people who drink sugary sodas and sports drinks daily are more likely to face a premature death from heart disease or cancer.

And not by a small margin either—this habit was linked with:

• A 28 percent higher risk of death from any cause
• A 31 percent higher risk of heart disease death
• A 16 percent higher risk of cancer death

Subjects were men and women from the Nurses’ Health and Health Professionals Follow-Up Studies. So we’re talking about roughly 30 years’ worth of data here. And ultimately, the lethal link stood independently of other dietary factors, physical activity levels, and obesity.

Of course, these things certainly contribute. This study may have focused on death risk, but plenty of other research has linked soda and other sugary drinks to higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions—such as obesity, hypertension, stroke, and cancer.

In fact, the strongest links are between sugary drinks and breast and colon cancers. And that’s just what we know so far.

No more excuses

I don’t have to explain why this is a serious problem. Sodas, sports drinks, and the like are hands down the primary source of sugar in the American diet—and half the population drinks at least one of these drinks per day.

But before you switch to a diet version, save yourself the time. Because you won’t do yourself any favors there, either. In this study, heavy soda drinkers only benefited from slight reduction in early death risk when they subbed out one sugar-sweetened drink for a “diet” version.

But women who consumed four or more of these drinks daily had a much higher mortality risk than the rest. So if you ask me, it’s time to set aside a little more research dollars to explore this connection further, too.

In the meantime, just imagine what might happen if everyone made a simple change and replaced their sodas with water.

Don’t like the taste? Believe me, I get that one a lot, so I have plenty of answers. Make yourself unsweetened herbal teas, try a carbonated naturally flavored water—or flavor plain tap water yourself with lemon, cucumbers, or mint leaves. Because you simply don’t have time for those same old tired excuses—literally.

And the country doesn’t have time for any further inaction. Policy makers need to stand up and start legislating. Sugar kills more people than alcohol and tobacco—and we aren’t even so much as taxing it. But if this strategy got more people to smoke less, you better believe we can accomplish the same goal with sugar.

Forget making America great again…Let’s make America thin again…and really save our nation, by kicking another lethal habit to the curb once and for all.

P.S. In the January 2015 issue of Logical Health Alternatives (“Train your brain to conquer your cravings”), I discussed simple ways you can you can break free from the shackles of food and sugar cravings. Subscribers have full access to my archives. Click here to learn more, or sign up today.

Source:

“Soda, sports drinks tied to higher risk of early death.” Reuters, March 18, 2019. (reuters.com/article/us-health-beverages/soda-sports-drinks-tied-to-higher-risk-of-early-death-idUSKCN1QZ2MG)