| It's important that you stop consuming soft drinks and alcohol. As substitutes, consider a glass of plain water with a wedge of lemon to enhance its taste or a glass of sparkling mineral water with a wedge of lime. As sparkling waters go, we favor the European brands, such as San Pellegrino, Gerolsteiner, Blu, and Perrier. They're also rich in calcium and magnesium, which are good for you.
Another option is iced tea—black, green, or herbal—as long as it contains no added sugar. |
| A large study at the University of Arizona medical school found that the consumption of soft drinks was strongly associated with nighttime heartburn. Food allergies or sensitivities likely play a role, along with inadequate levels of digestive enzymes. If you usually develop heartburn or GERD after eating particular foods, stop eating those foods!
Untreated, chronic heartburn and GERD can develop into Barrett's esophagus, a precancerous condition, and nighttime heartburn is particularly damaging to the esophagus. But conventional acid-suppressing drugs carry their own risks. |
| For many years, companies have had lucrative deals with public schools to stock vending machines with sugary soft drinks and high-sugar snacks. Although these companies are now withdrawing some of their high-calorie beverages and snacks from schools because of public pressure, we fear that the damage has already been done.
In the United States, the giant fast-food and soft drink companies compete for increased sales using marketing plans that resemble military battle plans. With the U.S. |
| It's not What Are High clear why sugar-free soft drinks would also lead to Glycemic Foods? weight gain, but we have our suspicions. When .... . ,
° ° r High-glycemic foods people consume diet drinks, they may believe trigger a sharp rjse they can afford to indulge in calorie- and carb- jn blood-sugar levels, rich foods, such as pizza. mainly because their sugar and starches are
-ri r- i- .. r r- i so quickly absorbed.
The Complicity of Food \ u. 7 , ¦ * a
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The makers of processed foods and fast-food cate^ndXtoes! |
| She usually began to feel drowsy about forty minutes after lunch, and she snacked on candies and soft drinks to perk up during the afternoon. At home after work, Janet usually heated a frozen dinner in the microwave, ate it, and often heated and ate a second one because she was so hungry. She then fell asleep on the sofa, woke up about 8 p.m., watched television, and went to bed around 11:30 p.m.
Janet's eating habits were a disaster, and she had difficulty improving them. Little by little, however, she made the attempt. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 Consumption of sugar (or its equivalents, like corn syrup) in soft drinks has been linked to obesity in children and adolescents. But a recent study of almost all fifty-year-old men and women in Framingham, Massachusetts, found that having more than one soft drink, whether sugared or diet, increased the risk of metabolic syndrome by 44 percent over a four-year period. The risk was increased similarly whether the drink was sugared or diet. |
Brigitte Mars, A.H.G.
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 Edible Uses
The rhizome is not generally considered edible, though it is used to flavor soft drinks, especially root beer, and to produce foam on drinks such as beers and sodas. The young shoots are edible raw or cooked, as are the tendrils of the vine.
Other Uses
A red dye is made from the ripe tendrils. In folkloric tradition it is used to attract love and prosperity, and it is said to excite the passions, making men more virile and women more sensuous. |
Marshall Editions
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 The most common sources of caffeine are coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, and some pain-relieving pills. Increase your intake of fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds. They contain fiber and nutrients that may help balance blood sugar, regulate bowel movements, and provide nourishment. Avoid alcohol, especially during the first two weeks before your period. Its dehydrating effects worsen PMS symptoms and blood sugar levels.
Supplements: Take 50 mg of vitamin B6 a day to assists in the production of progesterone to counterbalance estrogen. |
Jack Challem
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 Aspartame, used as a sweetener in soft drinks, is very similar to phenylalanine and may produce edgy feelings.
Other Types of Neurotransmitters and Neurotransmitter-like Substances
Nitric oxide
What it does. Nitric oxide is one of the most versatile neurotransmitters in the brain and in cell-to-cell communication throughout the body. In the brain, it plays a key role in our sense of smell and our ability to form memories. In the rest of the body, nitric acid increases blood-vessel flexibility and regulates blood flow. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Caffeine, found in coffee, tea, soft drinks and chocolate, is the most widely used stimulant in the world, with a global per-person average of 76 mg a day. Americans consume an average of 238 mg of caffeine daily. Scandinavians have the highest daily caffeine intake—400 mg.
* To learn more about caffeine, visit the US ^~ National Library of Medicine's Medline-Plus Web site at www.medlineplus.gov. Click on "Health Topics," and go to "Caffeine" in the alphabetical listing. |
| The carbonation, sugar and phosphoric acid in soft drinks can greatly speed absorption and raise blood levels of ketocon-azole (Nizoral), an oral drug taken for fungal infections. Avoid regular and diet sodas while taking this drug.
•Rhubarb. This vegetable contains natural chemicals that increase blood pressure and can reduce the effects of antihypertensive drugs such as hydrochlorothiazide.
Ask your doctor about: Eating five medium stalks of celery daily when taking antihypertensive drugs. Celery lowers blood pressure and can make the treatment more effective. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Unlike H20, however, soft drinks are so sweet that Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., executive director of the nutrition advocacy group the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), calls soda "liquid candy." Just check out these numbers:
In the last 50 years, soft drink consumption among people of all ages has increased a colossal 500 percent, according to the USDA.
In 1947, companies produced an average of about one hundred 12-ounce cans for every man, woman, and child in this country. |
| Studies Show an Upswing in Sugar Intake and Junk Food
Americans are ingesting so many empty calories that three nutrient-poor groups—sweets and desserts, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages—now contribute almost 25 percent of the calories we consume, recent data shows. If you then add such items as pizza, potato chips, and hamburgers, junk food makes up nearly one-third of the calories the average adult American consumes daily.
"We knew people are eating a lot of junk food, but to have almost one-third of their calories coming from those categories is appalling," bemoans Gladys Block, Ph.D. |
| One study, published in Obesity Research, aptly titled "The Sweetening of the World's Diet," showed that "80 percent of this sweet increase comes from soft drinks and sugar-sweetened beverages," according to the study's coauthor Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., nutrition professor and economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Curiously, urbanization and increased income accounted for 82 percent of the rise in caloric sweetener consumption worldwide. |
| They really did not address soft drinks and fruit drinks in a serious manner, for instance," says nutritionist Dr. Barry Popkin.
"The recommendations kowtow to the sugar industry by not taking a stronger stance on sugar," adds Lee Gross, M.D. "They don't provide a recommended daily cap on sugar consumption," adds the director of diabetes and nutrition education for Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, Florida.
Critics also claim that the new dietary recommendations don't go far enough when it comes to whole grains. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Phosphate-based soft drinks are also a big problem for stone formers. A study in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology examined 1,009 male patients who formed kidney stones and were also consumers of a significant amount of soda to see what effect soda might have on stone recurrence. The guys who consumed the largest quantities of phosphate-based sodas had the highest rate of stone recurrence.
We know that most stones are made from calcium oxalate, and we know limiting highoxalate foods is a really good idea. But what about limiting the other half of this duo— calcium? |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| Half chose candy, more than one-third chose soft drinks and ice cream, and about one-fourth bought fast food," explains nutritionist Dr. Nestle in her book Food Politics.
Specifically, reports Nestle, "soft drink companies unapologetically name 8- to 12-year-olds as marketing targets. Advertisers encourage marketing directed to 9-year-olds as a logical consequence of the fact that children—and girls in particular—are maturing earlier."
In fact, corporations have devised ways to win over young people by hooking up with organizations that cater to them. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| The best treatment for osteoporosis is to build peak bone mass (your bone bank) in your twenties and do weight training, but also to prevent bone loss in the first
FACTOIP
Even the thought of the carbonation I in colas and soft drinks makes your J bones fear their calcium will disappear into your urine. But it's really the sixteen phosphates that are found in caffeinated drinks that may be responsible. So add 20 milligrams more calcium to your intake for every 12-ounce caffeinated soft drink and every 4-ounce cup of coffee. |
Michael Pollan
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 American gas stations now make more money selling food (and cigarettes) than gasoline, but consider what kind of food this is: except perhaps for the milk and water, it's all highly processed nonperishable snack foods and extravagantly sweetened soft drinks in hefty twenty-ounce bottles. Gas stations have become processed-corn stations: ethanol outside for your car and high-fructose corn syrup inside for you.
« TRY NOT TO EAT ALONE. Americans are increasingly eating in solitude. |
Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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 People just don't seem to notice calories from soft drinks. Researchers speculate that because the drink travels so quickly through your mouth, there's little time for a signal to get to the brain and alert it that you're consuming calories. Solid food provides more of the feeling of fullness that tells our brain we're full and it's time to stop eating.
Colas may pose their own particular health threats. The Framingham Osteoporosis Study found that women who drank one cola a day—diet or regular— had about a 4 to 5 percent lower hipbone density than those who drank fewer than one cola a month. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 The American per-capita consumption of soft drinks is about three quarts per week.
Other nutritional factors also accelerate calcium loss and may be implicated in osteoporosis. Refined sugar may raise the risk for osteoporosis by increasing the loss of calcium from the body and by causing a significant increase in fasting serum Cortisol levels. A serving of refined sugar increases the urinary excretion of calcium,43 and an excess of corticosteroids can cause osteoporosis. High sodium intake can also cause an increase in urinary excretion of calcium in some individuals. |
| Numerous caffeinated beverages, including coffee, soft drinks, black and green tea, and even decaffeinated coffee, contain tannins, and some contain even more tannins than regular coffee. In animal experiments, tannins have reduced fertility in mice and hens.20,21
Increasingly, environmental pollution and exposure to heavy metals, pesticides, estrogen-like substances, and other chemicals are implicated in cases of infertility in men and women. Depending on the specific exposure, duration, and load, different aspects of fertility can be affected. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 I've written many articles about the dangers of soft drinks, including articles that looked at the link between soft drink consumption and diabetes, loss of bone density and even mental depression. Apparently the word is getting out and people are changing their habits and actually quitting soft drinks. I'm very pleased to see this and astonished that it's 43.1 percent. I'm glad the number is that high and I hope I can do my part to help make the number higher in the future. |
| We will all do well to stop drinking soft drinks, because they really have no nutritional benefit to the human body whatsoever. In fact, they are a detriment to human health, and in a sane society the marketing of soft drinks to children would never be legally allowed. Similarly, the fact that we have soft drink vending machines in our public schools dispensing this liquid candy to children is obscene. Why this would be allowed in our institutions of learning is one of the great mysteries of corporate influence in modern society. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 If you became overweight drinking soft drinks and eating Big Macs at McDonald's, and you try to sue McDonald's, the restaurant's defense will be, in part, based on the idea that McDonald's food can be part of a healthy diet. Now, I disagree with this because if you look around, every company is saying this. You have 400 food manufactures lined up, and they're all saying, "Our foods, soft drinks, donuts, candy bars, sugary breakfast cereals and margarine with hydrogenated oils can be part of a healthy diet." By the time you have listened to everybody, you have a system of food that can kill you. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 The third reason is that people understand the information and they want to change -- they want to stop eating cheeseburgers or chocolate candy bars or drinking soft drinks -- but they feel that they are unable to. They feel like they cannot break that pattern of behavior in their life. And I suspect that for you, reading this, this maybe the more familiar reason. We all have varying degrees of success in actually being able to break our old patterns and establish new patterns. It's very difficult to give up drinking soft drinks, for example, if you've been drinking them for many years. |
| People don't want to give up soft drinks for fear that they'll "miss out" on the pleasure of drinking them. In fact, I've heard opponents of health food actually say that we are "food Nazis" who never enjoy eating the stuff we eat because it all tasted like cardboard. Boy, are these people wrong: natural, healthy food is delicious. And get this: we can actually taste it because we haven't blown away our taste sensation with extreme nachos, MSG, aspartame, sugars and soft drinks. Health food tastes wonderful: it's the junk food that's an offensive taste assault. |
Michael Pollan
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| Americans today mark time all day long with nibbles of food and sips of soft drinks, which must be constantly at their sides, lest they expire during the haul between breakfast and lunch. (The snack food and beverage industry has surely been the great beneficiary of the new social taboo against smoking, which used to perform much the same time-marking function.) We have reengineered our cars to accommodate our snacks, adding bigger cup holders and even refrigerated glove compartments, and we've reengineered foods to be more easily eaten in the car. |
| Offices now typically have well-stocked kitchens, and it is apparently considered gauche at a business meeting or conference if a spread of bagels, muffins, pastries, and soft drinks is not provided at frequent intervals. |
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