These drinks are deadly—drink water instead

As you might imagine, I don’t have too many patients who drink soda. In fact, most of them drink nothing but water—sometimes coffee and tea, too. So I feel certain that my message has been loud and clear to them …

But if the ballooning diabesity epidemic tells us anything, it’s that a huge portion of the population still hasn’t gotten the memo. So you know what? I’m going to keep sharing studies like this latest one, in the hopes of finally convincing every last person out there to put that soda down for good…

Death by soft drink

A new study from European researchers has linked drinking soda to a rise in all-cause mortality. That’s right—death by any cause.

And it wasn’t just soda, either. These researchers looked at intake of both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks, independently. And guess what? They found that drinking either could send you to an early grave.

Here’s what they found, specifically:

• A significantly higher risk of death among subjects who drank two or more glasses of soda per day, versus those who only drank one glass or less per month.

• Two or more glasses of “diet” soda raised risk by more than a quarter—whereas sugar-sweetened soda raised risk by nearly ten percent.

• Artificially sweetened soft drinks raised risk of heart disease death by more than 50 percent. While sugar-sweetened sodas raised death risk from digestive diseases by nearly 60 percent.

Researchers also found a strong link between total soft drink consumption and Parkinson’s disease death. In fact, soda was associated with a 60 percent higher risk of dying from the disease.

But the only type of cancer with a strong link to soda consumption was colorectal cancer. (Soft drinks increased risk of this disease by a quarter.)

Don’t confuse any of these results for an exoneration, though—especially given what we already know from previous research. Which is that, any way you slice it, soft drinks are a death sentence.

The numbers don’t lie

These may only be observational findings—but it’s a weighty association, to say the least.

Just this past year, two large American studies identified links between artificially sweetened soda and all-cause death risk. Which makes this the third study in the span of one year to observe this lethal trend. (And not a small one either—these researchers included nearly half a million subjects, from all across Europe.)

Call it a coincidence if you want. But I won’t be taking chances on soda of any kind.

Instead, I’ll continue drinking and recommending water. I don’t know why people have so much trouble with just drinking water anyway. After all, it doesn’t have to be boring—you can add mint, or cucumbers, or lemon. Unsweetened tea or coffee are both perfectly healthy beverages, too.

The important part is that you stay away from soft drinks. Because even though they don’t come with a health warning like cigarettes do—at least, not yet—these statistics tell you everything you need to know.

Soda kills. How much more evidence do you need?

P.S. Studies have also linked soda consumption to liver disease, amongst other risks, which I discussed in the December 2012 issue of my monthly newsletter, Logical Health Alternatives (“The skinny on another fatal risk of obesity”). Subscribers have access to this and all of my past content in the archives. So if you haven’t already, become a subscriber today. Click here now!

Source:

“Soft Drinks Once Again Associated With Premature Death.” 09/04/19. (medscape.com/viewarticle/917675)