Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Sorry, but I can’t help but wrap up the week with one more truth about soda…

Guess what? It makes you fat.

And it’s killing our country, pound by sugar-fueled pound. Yet somehow, we’re still debating the wisdom of legislation that places restrictions on the sale of sugary drinks.

The wonders never cease. And the evidence keeps piling up. Not one, but three studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine this past September drove this deadly point home.

The first showed that kids who stopped drinking sugary beverages for 18 months gained less body fat and weight than their soda-chugging peers. Another showed that obese teens who were given no-calorie drinks and nutritional counseling in place of sugary beverages gained less than half as much weight over the course of a year.

Not surprisingly, this positive trend came to an abrupt halt, once the sugar-busting interventions ended.

And to top it all off, the Harvard School of Public Health found that drinking one or more sugary drinks per day doubles the risk of obesity among the genetically inclined. Which makes soda the nutritional equivalent of gasoline on a fire.

If that’s not proof that we should be doing more to keep soda cans out of this country’s cup holders, I don’t know what is. So go ahead and file this update under “obvious facts that can’t be repeated enough.”

Meanwhile, the American public should consider itself warned…again.

Source:
“Can it! Soda studies cite stronger link to obesity.” Reuters Sept. 21, 2012.