Two new studies add to an overwhelming amount of data that artificially-sweetened and sugar-sweetened soda beverages cause disease. Will Coke, Pepsi, and others experience the same legal troubles as the tobacco industry? I really don’t care if ignorant and addicted people choose to continue to consume this garbage on a consistent basis; after all this is a free country. I care that anyone else should have to pay for any health care expense such people incur. Or does living in a free country mean that you can run up bills at someone else’s expense?   

We know that sugar-sweetened drinks make overweight people much worse. A randomized control trial in healthy young men shows that it only takes three weeks of consuming 20 ounces of sugar-sweetened drinks per day¹ to induce adverse changes to cholesterol particle size, increased inflammation in the blood, and increased fasting blood sugar. This is stunning. It shows that these deadly beverages begin wrecking metabolism in completely healthy people in a very short period of time.

If you think this means you should reach for an artificially-sweetened soda think again. Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center have shown that in adults ages 65 – 74, who regularly consume artificially-sweetened beverages experienced a triple-size ballooning of their guts compared to those who don’t drink them (they are even worse than sugar-sweetened drinks). If a person consumed more than two artificially-sweetened drinks per day then their waistlines swelled five-fold.

Millions of Americans are addicted to the chemical-stimulant flavoring systems used in these beverages – a system of addiction that has been understood by these manufacturers for decades. As metabolic disease in our country takes over lung cancer in terms of health care costs, look for states to try to fund their metabolic-disease-ridden health care systems with a tobacco-like campaign against the soda industry. 

Posted by Byron J Richards at 03:28 PM.

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