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The Detrimental Effects of Soda
What is your favorite soda? Coke? Do you know what is in soda? Cutting down on soda can lead to a healthy and better lifestyle. Studies show that soda, though it tastes good, has many negative effects that outweigh the positive effects. Soda, especially diet, is detrimental to the health of your body.
My cousins teacher did an experiment with coke. She put a tooth in coke and left it for at least a week. The next time they checked the tooth had disintegrated. The coke had eaten away at the tooth. If this can happen to a tooth imagine what it does to your body.
How healthful are these drinks, which provide a lot of sugars, calories and caffeine but no significant nutritional value? And what happens if you drink a lot of them at a very young age? Soda is a sweetened, carbonated, acidic, often caffeinated drink. Forty-five gallons of soda is consumed per person/per year by the average American. Even adults are just as vulnerable to tooth decay, from drinking excessive amounts of soda, even though they have good enamel and well calcified teeth.
In America soda manufacturers are the biggest users of sugar. At least ten teaspoons are in each, 12 ounce, can which provides you with the maximum recommended intake of sugar a day. Sugar creates insulin which tells the body to store all carbohydrates as fat. Sugar in soda can cause heightened cholesterol levels, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, and premature aging. (Mercola)
Sugar isnt the only thing in soda that is bad for teeth, but the acids included in many soft drinks eat away enamel and make teeth more vulnerable. The pH, measure of acidity or alkalinity of a solution, of regular and diet sodas ranges from 2.47-3.35, the lower the pH the more acidic it is. The pH in our mouth is normally about 6.2 to 7, slightly more acidic than water. A pH of 5.2 to 5.5 or below can dissolve the hard enamel of our teeth. Phosphoric acid is in all soda and interferes with the use of calcium which can lead to osteoporosis. Phosphoric acid also neutralizes hydrochloric acid and so digestion cannot properly take place.
Aspartame is another ingredient in sodas, particularly Diet Soda. Aspartame is a carcinogen and becomes wood alcohol also known as methanol. In large amounts Aspartame can make someone who drinks diet soda, constantly, feel depressed, fatigued, dehydrated, and/or hungry. Aspartame also can lead to brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders, and seizures.
Caffeine is an ingredient in most sodas and does not promote health. A 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew has 93 milligrams of caffeine almost an equivalent to an adult dose of NoDoz, a caffeine pill to keep you awake. Caffeine can cause jitters, insomnia, heightened blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, breast lumps, birth defects, and more.
Kids and adults alike drink soda. The soda company pays some lunch services a commission for every soda they sell with lunch. This motivates these lunch services to sell soda instead of healthier milk or juice because they are getting paid to sell it. (Squires)
Sixty percent of all public and private schools have vending machines to sell soda. The person responsible for selling the soda places the vending machines in public areas and might even heat the room so the people around would buy a cold drink. This is how most of sodas are sold to the population.
In ten years drinking soda doubled. Teen boys now drink an average of three to seven cans and