NHNE News List
Current Members: 1538
Support NHNE by using <http://www.goodsearch.com> to search the Net.
Subscribe/unsubscribe/archive info at the bottom of this message.

------------

EXCERPT:

"So while it is clear that soda isn't good for you, it is also obvious that
soda is downright bad for your health. It can make you overweight, suck the
calcium out of your bones, and increase risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading
cause of blindness."

------------

MORE DANGEROUS THAN SMOKING? DEATH BY SODA
By Joshua Frank
AlterNet
December 27, 2006

http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/

We are a country of overweight people. Americans are tipping the scales in
record numbers, with approximately 130 million who are presently considered
overweight or obese. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged
20 to 39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors
contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles to our
overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods. Dealing with the
crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy dense foods is a multi-billion
dollar industry, and manufacturers of such products go to great lengths to
ensure their shareholders continue to profit from the sales of
nutrition-less foods.

Despite the barrage of marketing to the contrary, sales pitches, and
misinformation, consumption of soda has been directly linked to both obesity
as well as type 2 diabetes. Soft drinks are packed full of sugar and refined
carbohydrates, both of which are undeniably correlated to these factors.
Type 2 diabetes is also associated with a poor diet that is laden with
high-fructose corn syrup and low in fiber. Research indicates that soft
drinks largely contribute to this growing epidemic, with high school and
college age kids being the most likely to consume sugar laden soda beverages
on a regular basis.

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are bad news, according to health experts,
because they contribute to the obesity epidemic by providing empty calories,
that is, calories that provide little or no nutritional value. Meaning, a
person who slugs down too much soda is swallowing more than their body can
handle. And this added energy isn't healthy energy -- it's energy derived
from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), i.e., highly refined sugar that has
been chemically processed in order to excite your taste buds. It has been
argued that too much HFCS in one's diet may offset the intake of solid food,
yet does not produce a positive caloric balance. In turn, this
over-consumption contributes to the slow development of obesity because the
person is consuming more calories than their body can burn. And these days,
people are drinking more soda than ever before. Perhaps not surprisingly, as
portion sizes for soft drinks have increased, so have American waistlines.

Too put this dangerous pattern in to perspective, one regular 12-ounce can
of sugar-sweetened soda contains approximately 150 calories with close to 50
grams of sugar. If this is added to the typical American diet, one can of
soda per day could lead to a weight gain of 15 pounds in one year. Currently
the consumption of soda accounts for about 8%-9% of total energy among
children and adults, and studies suggest that it is most certainly having a
negative effect on the people who consume it in such vast quantities. So
what's so wrong with being overweight then, you ask? So what if soda has
been linked to causing obesity? What's wrong with that? Well, plenty say
scores of medical, health and public nutrition experts.

For starters, obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease,
bowel cancer as well as high blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes alone can
contribute to cardiovascular disease, retinopathy (blindness), neuropathy
(nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), and other health complications.
So if type 2 diabetes is highly associated with individuals who are obese,
and obesity is linked to SSBs, then type 2 diabetes is highly associated
with the consumption of SSBs because the consumption of SSBs is so highly
associated with causing obesity. In short, if one consumes SSBs on a regular
basis, they are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which itself may
cause many ailments. That's why being overweight is not a good thing for
one's health. And that's why drinking copious amounts of sugar-sweetened
beverages contributes to poor wellbeing byway of obesity and type 2
diabetes.

On top of causing one to gain unhealthy weight and spurring type 2 diabetes,
SSBs may also contribute to the loss of bone density, which may cause one to
be more susceptible to bone fractures. It has been argued that low bone
density may be a result of high levels of phosphate, which is found in
elevated amounts in sugar-sweetened cola. Such large amounts of phosphate
may alter the calcium-phosphorus ratio in people whose bodies are still
developing, or people who are most likely to consume SSBs, and consequently
this can have a toxic effect on their bone development. If a growing
individual has a low calcium intake it could jeopardize bone mass, which may
then contribute to hip fractures and other bone related disorders later in
life. Drinking a lot of SSBs while your body develops could have lasting,
deadly effects on your health. So while it is clear that soda isn't good for
you, it is also obvious that soda is downright bad for your health. It can
make you overweight, suck the calcium out of your bones, and increase risk
of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. But that's not the kind of
news the profiteers of big soda would ever want you to hear.

The marketing firms that barrage consumers with ads for their mouth-watering
soft drinks hope to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products,
not less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so. Their
annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their interests, as
Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry shells out tons of money
to convince people to consume their products in mass quantities. In the late
1990s, Coca-Cola spent about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with
over $850 million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish
spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household name.
Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption of SSBs
because of their negative health impacts are up against a very well financed
opposition -- not unlike the anti-smoking activists who take on the
shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.

Nevertheless, Coca-Cola, like its competitors, is extremely savvy. They have
inundated schools with their products. As Michele Simon, the author of
Appetite for Profit, writes, "A 2003 government survey showed that 43
percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent
of high schools sold food through vending machines, snack bars, or other
venues outside the federally supported school meal programs ... With public
schools so desperate for funding, districts are lured into signing exclusive
contracts (also known as "pouring rights" deals) with major beverage
companies -- mainly Coca-Cola and PepsiCo".

In other words, these multinational corporations give millions of dollars to
schools so that their districts and vending machines exclusively carry their
goods. In reality, however, it comes down to one big clever marketing ploy:
In the end these big corporations have hooked kids on their products while
fooling people into believing they are virtuous corporate citizens because
they support education.

Fortunately there is a growing movement across the country to ban sodas from
schools. Indeed the feisty Killer Coke campaign, which focuses on the
company's labor abuses and not Coke's negative health implications, has been
successful is banning the product from over 10 major universities in the
United States. But it would be wise to not just focus on the company's
alleged murders in Colombia, and instead broaden the struggle against the
soda industry by pointing out their complicity in the obesity epidemic
worldwide.

Because death truly is the "real thing."

------------

RELATED NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

THE LINK BETWEEN VIOLENCE & WHAT WE EAT (12/24/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12320

SUGAR LINKED WITH MENTAL PROBLEMS IN NORWAY STUDY (9/29/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/11930

SUGARY DRINKS PILE ON POUNDS (8/10/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/11653

ONE-THIRD OF U.S. ADULTS DIABETIC OR PRE-DIABETIC (5/28/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/11313

CLINTON'S BROKERS DEAL TO GET SODA OUT OF SCHOOLS (5/9/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/11247

CARCINOGENIC SOFT DRINKS (3/15/2006):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10981

ALL ABOUT REFINED SUGAR (& WHY IT IS SO BAD FOR OUR HEALTH) (10/28/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10224

STUDY LINKS ASPARTAME WITH CANCERS (10/4/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10081

SUGARY SOFT DRINKS RAISE RISK OF DIABETES (9/6/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7831

ASPARTAME FOLLOW UP (2/11/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2694

THE DARK SIDE OF ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS (2/11/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2690

THE DARK SIDE OF PROCESSED FOODS (1/18/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1055

------------

NHNE News List:

To subscribe, send a message to:
nhnenews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To unsubscribe, send a message to:
nhnenews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

To review current posts:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/messages

Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
eMail: nhne@...
NHNE Website: http://www.nhne.org/
Phone: (928) 225-2366
Fax: (815) 642-0117

Appreciate what we are doing?
You can say so with a tax-deductible donation:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=8173

P.O. Box 2242
Sedona, AZ 86339