We all enjoy a refreshing cold soda once in a while. But others enjoy this delight more than others on multiple occasions. Although soda is deliciously tasty, we all know that it is bad for you. With extreme amounts of sugar in each can, it can put damage on your health. Diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are prevalent from drinking too much soda. But does only drinking too much soda cause these symptoms. What if I told you that even one soda a day can harm you?
It all has to do with telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes. Previous research has shown that telomeres tend to shorten as we grow older, and this new study suggests that drinking soda hastens the process.
Shorten you telomere length because of drinking too much soda can be related to smoking effects as well.
For the study, the researchers measured telomere length in DNA taken from 5,309 healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 65 and then looked at how much sugar-sweetened soda each person reported drinking on a regular basis. The data were from the years 1999 through 2002.
The researchers found that the telomeres of people who reported having an 8-ounce daily serving of soda showed that the people’s biological age was older by 1.9 years, TIME magazine reported. Drinking a daily 20-ounce serving was linked to 4.6 more years of biological aging.
Even though soda intake and shorten telomeres does not mean that they are related. A study would need to be conducted to prove in fact that shortening of telomeres are because of drinking too much soda. So stay away from the calorie packed pop is you want long telomeres!
Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/21/soda-age-faster-telomeres_n_6015132.html?utm_hp_ref=science
I certainly agree that soda is bad for you. I never knew about ‘telomeres’, so I am glad that I earned something new! Along with telomeres, soda is very bad for you because of the high quantities of sugar which could lead to many horrible things. According to Laura J. Martin, “Diet and regular sodas have both been linked to obesity, kidney damage, and certain cancers. Regular soft drinks have been linked to elevated blood pressure.” As you can see, both diet and regular sodas are terrible for you. A good experiment to prove this theory is to take two random people and have one of them drink soda at every meal for a month and have the other drink water at every meal for a month. At the end of the month, the blood pressure should be measured, and so should the weight of each person. The results would be intriguing. Of course you would have to consider the third variables such as the people’s weight or health before the experiment. I believe that this experiment would be a great way to show that soda is horrendous for you.
For more information, check out this link: http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/sodas-and-your-health-risks-debated
I am not a big soda drinker at all, in fact I hate soda. After reading this article, many questions began to pop to my head. Do you think that other sugary drinks besides soda, such as gatorade, have the same effect on aging? Do you think there are other variables besides sugary drinks that can lead to the shortening process?
I know very little about telomeres so I decided to further look into them. I was able to find this article that states depression can also speed up the shortening process of them!
Interesting study! I think it’s pretty safe to say that water is always the best option. It’ a great sample size and reverse causation is ruled out. However there may be multiple confounding variables that could contribute to why the scientists received the information that they did. During this time what other foods were popular that had serious health risks? Something to look into.
I agree that sugary drinks are a waste of calories. There is often up to 40 grams of sugar in one Snapple. For this reason, Major Bloomberg has been trying to ban the Big Gulp in effort to try to curb the obesity problem. People don’t realize that drinking these insanely sugary drinks is just added sugar that is making them gain weight.
When I was little I always used to always get headaches until my doctor suggested I switch my juice boxes to water and the headaches sufficed. Eating too much sugar takes water out of your body in an attempt to dilute it from harming your body. The loss of water leads to dehydration which is the reason sugary drinks cause headaches.
http://www.olsonnd.com/why-does-sugar-give-me-a-headache/
I did a post on the same study! I didn’t think that soda is necessarily as bad as cigarettes, because in order for the telomeres to be effected you have to drink nearly a liter of soda a day. You can read more of minehere
Soda to me is totally not worth all the negative side effects. Not only does it reduce your life span, it also has so much sugar and can contribute to weight loss. Also I feel like soda is a slippery slope to a lot of bad eating habits. Soda can cause weird fat in weird places that regular food would not do. Heres an article about more negative effects of soda. http://www.rodalenews.com/facts-about-soda?page=4