#BEATTHEBELLY Daily Tip: Stop the Pop

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So who told us it was OK to drink diet coke till it came out of our ears? Well unsurprisingly soft drinks manufacturers were the main culprits for mainstreaming fizzy pop into our homes and lives with their agenda of increased sales and profits at the expense of our health.

Their marketing created iconic links between: Coke and Football / Father Christmas, Basketball with PepsiMax and 7UP/Sprite; Lucozade with any sport; finally Dr Peppers with general craziness!

Recent research in the US has linked cola, pop and other fizzy drinks containing artificial sweeteners like Aspartame to a higher risk of developing diabetes, obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure amongst other ailments.

On one level you should stop the pop to reduce unnecessary calories and caffeine and save your teeth.
On another you should stop drinking stuff containing sweeteners becuase of aforementioned risks.
On another - WHY DO YOU NEED TO DRINK IT ANYWAY?

When I work an Emergency GP night shift I will often eat carrots and sometimes drink "full fat" Coke. This is probably not good for my teeth or my waistline but I have to stay alert all night reamining reactive to the needs of 400,000 patients in the Vale of York. I don't make a habit of it (either the coke or the night shifts) but I do find it hard to get off to sleep at the end of the shift because I am wired on caffeine and sugar; I gained one and a half stone working nights with these habits over a 6 month period in A+E.

Somehow we are all so busy / stressed / tired that we are only able to maintain the system when we are hard wired to sugar and caffeine in pop.

In the same way that the financial crisis was an adjustment to overhiked expectations markets and prices, we may need an adjustment in our energy dependency on pop, to scale down our need and excessive consumption of what used to be a treat.

A few of my GP patients have recently tried to wean themselves off a 4 litre / day Coke habit - this is proving to be hard but guess what - they are sadly all already diabetic and overweight.

I guarantee that you will eventually feel better while losing more weight if you ditch the pop.

The good Lord invented water for a reason - its the only thing we have to drink daily and fortunately He left it around in abundance. I promise you wont gain weight drinking too much of the Adams Ale.

I cant find the direct link regarding this at the moment but here are a few related:

Have a read here about pros and cons of sweeteners from Mayo Clinic

As always the daily mail has its say here

A related article from NHS Choices website here: if this is a problem for kids we have no doubt that it will affect adults too.


Dr Ben Sinclair
Sinclair Health Limited
https://www.optimiseclinic.co.uk
Twitter: @menshealthtips
Linked In: http://ow.ly/5iykm

Comments

  1. Dr Ben Sinclair MRCGP Wednesday 13 July 2011 at 21:15:00 BST

    OK so finally I found the link i was looking for here

    http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2011/07/02/2-new-studies-diet-soda-leads-to-weight-gain-diabetes/

    ReplyDelete

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