If you drink soda, that is what it does to your physique

It is no secret that soft drinks are not good for your overall health. After all, the first ingredient after carbonated water is sugar! But sometimes you’re just in the mood to sip something that is both carbonated and sweet. And even if it’s good, can we interest you in choosing a low-fat reading alternative instead?

Even if you are not a regular soft drinker, you may find that the occasional splurge is harmless. But the combination of sugar, chemicals and carbonation required to make your favorite carbonated beverage can wreak havoc on more than just your waistline.

Below we show just a few scary things that can happen to your body when you drink soda. Be sure to check out what happens to your brain when you drink soda.

One of the most obvious side effects of drinking soda is the risk of weight gain, thanks to the influx of calories and sugar. A 12-ounce can of soda contains about 150 calories and up to 40 grams of sugar. Drinking one a day means that you get more than 130,000 extra calories per year. But it is more than just the extra calories per soft drink that packs on the kilos. A study in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that beverages containing high fructose corn syrup (found in many soft drinks) are linked to obesity. Fructose is absorbed in the body differently from other sugars, the study assesses, which affects insulin levels and metabolism, and can lead to weight gain.

And it’s not just the calorie options; Diet soda can also make people pack on the pounds, according to a 2015 study published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study showed that over nine years, people who drank soda got almost three times as much belly fat as those who did not drink soda. Researchers have theorized that the consumption of artificial sweeteners leads to more sugar cravings and therefore makes people eat more calories than they normally would.

Do not miss the secret side effects of drinking soda, experts say.

Drinking soda causes your blood sugar to rise, and it sends your pancreas to excessive insulin to metabolize all that sugar. So it’s no surprise a study in the American Heart Association journal Circulation found that consumption of sugary drinks, such as soft drinks, was linked to the onset of type 2 diabetes. And this correlation was independent of the obesity impact on developing type 2 diabetes. The researchers in the study recommended a reduction in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, and we could not agree more.

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It makes sense, but it is worth noting: drinking sugary drinks increases the risk of diabetes as well as the risk of prediabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not at the levels found in diabetics. When Tufts University researcher Examining American diets, they found that those who consumed about six 12-ounce cans of soda a week had a 46 percent higher risk of developing prediabetes compared to those who drank less soda and those who did not drink soda at all for 14 years. Since 25 percent of prediabetics will develop type 2 diabetes over a 5-year period, the fact that soft drinks increase the risk of prediabetics is as frightening as its effect on the risk of diabetes.

Drinking soda regularly not only gives you less energy; it also slows down your swimmers. Rochester Young Men’s Study, which examined 188 healthy young men at the University of Rochester, found that participants who drank more sugary drinks, including soft drinks, experienced lower sperm counts.

Men’s fertility is not the only thing that can be disturbed by soft drink consumption. According to a study from 2018 published in the journal EpidemiologyConsuming just one (or more) sugary drinks a day — by either a man or a woman — is associated with a reduced chance of getting pregnant. More specifically, women who consumed at least one soft drink per day had 25% lower fertility while men who drank the same amount showed 33% lower fertility.

Soda has been linked to poor kidney function according to a study at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. Researchers studied 8,000 participants who all had normal kidney function at the beginning of the study, divided into a group that did not drink soft drinks, one who had one a day and another who had two a day. Not surprisingly, the group who drank two soft drinks a day had a much higher chance of developing proteinuria, a condition in which protein is not properly filtered by the kidneys and a sign of chronic kidney disease. Scary things.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among adults in America and accounts for 610,000 lives a year, according to the CDC. Although people usually associate poor heart health with poor lifestyle habits such as smoking and not exercising, drinking soda should also be at the top of the list. Having a soda of 12 ounces a day increases the risk of heart attack by 20%, according to a study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The researchers found that the link was independent of obesity and weight gain alone and believe that the soda’s inflammatory properties play a role. Sugary drinks have also been linked to higher levels of triglycerides and low levels of HDL or good cholesterol, all of which lead to poor heart function.

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No surprise here: All the sugar consumed by drinking soda is awful for your pearl whites. Pair it with the acidity of carbonated drinks that ruin tooth enamel, and you have a dentist’s nightmare. Soda leaks calcium from your teeth and leads to tooth erosion, according to a study published in International Journal of Dentistry. Aside from severe tooth decay, darker colored sodas like cola can also stain the surface of your teeth. There is nothing to smile about.

About 1 in 13 (or 25 million) Americans suffer from asthma, a lung condition that is commonly considered a genetic disease triggered by allergens such as pollen and mold. But sugary drinks can also lead to the onset of asthma, according to a study from Australia. Researchers found that high levels of soft drink consumption were associated with an increased risk of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). So take a deep breath … and put down soda.

Although your legs naturally become more brittle as you age, drinking soda can exacerbate this problem. Some sodas make your legs weaker, according to a study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study showed that women who drank cola daily and diet cola had lower bone density in the hips. Although the study did not find an association between carbonated carbonated beverages and bone density, it noted a lower ratio of calcium to phosphorus. So it is important to add soda to stay strong in old age.

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Drinking soda not only affects your body – your brain is also in danger. A study from UCLA found that consuming high levels of fructose, such as added sugar in soft drinks (hey, high fructose corn syrup!) alters hundreds of cells in the brain. The scariest part is that these are genes linked to serious diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD. Although a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids has been shown to reverse the harmful effects of fructose, it is best to refrain from sugary drinks in the first place.

Think that just a couple of sodas a week will not do any harm? What if. People who drank two or more soft drinks a week had a significantly higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared to those who did not drink them, a study published in the journal Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers and prevention was found. Of the 60,524 participants, those who drank juice instead of soft drinks did not have the same risk of pancreatic cancer, even though the juice also contains a lot of sugar. Soda was found to be uniquely dangerous for the pancreas, which is another reason to kick your pop habit for good.

It’s not particularly shocking that soda is linked to weight gain, but what’s new is that sugary drinks are actually the worst of the worst when it comes to their association with weight gain.

“Sugar-sweetened beverages increase cardiometabolic risk factors compared to equal amounts of starch,” said lead author Kimber Stanhope, a research nutritionist at the University of California, Davis, in a press release. The review, published in the journal Obesity reviews, provides even more evidence that a calorie is sometimes not a calorie and that there are other mechanisms in place that cause further negative health outcomes when drinking soda compared to saying eating a candy.

For more, be sure to check out popular drinks with more sugar than soda, Science says.

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