I’ll, on average, have two or three cups of coffee a day during the workweek. I slept in so late today and it was beautiful. Day 6 off of soda, “Mountain Dew”! My plan is to drink only water for the upcoming week. Getting tea always feels like a nice treat, and it’s something I look forward to. I was diagnosed with a UTI a few days ago. Nov 12 , 20, By Courtney Grove 6: pp 123-132. Not everyone agrees with that. Do you dismiss them, as the beverage industry does, as bad science and media hype? As for diet sodas, nutrition researcher David L. Katz, MD, who directs the Yale Prevention Research Center, told WebMD in November 2010 that the research as a whole suggests sugar substitutes and other non-nutritive food substitutes have little impact on weight. Zilch. Experts debate the research on potential health risks of soft drinks. Nov 8 , 20, By Sammy Nickalls You could also try slowly cutting down on the amount of diet soda you're drinking. Or is it time to put the can down and take a hard look at what you're drinking? It’s only 30 minutes into the work day and I cannot focus for the life of me. After ditching it, not only did I eliminate that source, but I also became more health-conscious and aware of how everything I consumed affected my body. Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, Feb. 28, 2011. Most reports cautioned that the findings were preliminary and did not prove that diet sodas cause stroke. Why didn’t I do this earlier? Work threw a particularly exciting Happy Hour party after hours and everyone was drinking. But then I only take a few sips of it. That is the amount of nutrients and vitamins that are in a typical soft drink. Observational studies like these can point to possible concerns, but they can't prove that sodas do, or don’t, pose a health risk. Rachel K. Johnson, RD, PhD, MPH, is a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and an American Heart Association spokeswoman. Many of the studies included in that review showed that overweight children and adults drink more sugary beverages than normal-weight kids and adults, and several studies found that the more sugar-sweetened drinks people drank the greater their likelihood of becoming overweight. American Heart Association: “Recommendations on Added Sugars, Aug. 24, 2009.". “Studies that do not support a relationship between consumption of sugared beverages and health outcomes tend to be conducted by authors supported by the beverage industry,” Brownell wrote in a 2009 New England Journal of Medicine article supporting a soda tax. Sweet Results. Keep in mind that all week, I’m taking an antibiotic two times a day, so the improvement of my symptoms will get better regardless of how much water I consume. “A calorie is a calorie, and what the data clearly show is that Americans are eating too much and taking in too many calories, period,” says Maureen Storey, PhD, the ABA's senior vice president of science policy. I’m sure if I continued for longer than seven days, I would feel more energized during the workweek. Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest. As I cut out soda and other sugary drinks, my water intake also increased. Not only is soda full of empty calories, but some studies found that people who drink soda regularly are less likely to get enough calcium and other important nutrients from their diet. juice, soda, alcohol, etc.). Maureen Storey, PhD, senior vice president of science policy, American Beverage Association. One such study, funded by the British sugar industry group The Sugar Bureau, examined sugar and soft drink consumption among 1,300 children in the U.K. American Heart Association: ‘Sugar-Sweetened Drinks Associated with Higher Blood Pressure’, Feb. 29, 2011. I get through my day normally, just excited that I can start tomorrow morning off with a cup of tea. These 10 Healthy Foods Will Fill You Up Without Weight Gain, 9 Positive Actions You Can Do When Life Sucks, 5 Ways to Uncover and Remove Your Hidden Blocks to Success, 10 Ways You Can Unlock Your Psychic Abilities, The Big Benefits of Small Talk—and How to Get Better At It, 8 Simple Ways To Maximize Your Workout (And Save Time! If anything, I think they’ve gotten worse. “They are getting all of the calories they need in a day from soft drinks, so it’s no wonder they are fat.”, “The first thing that anyone should do if they are trying to lose weight," Nestle says, "is eliminate or cut down on soft drinks.". Sugary soft drinks, in particular, have been shown in many studies to be associated with overweight and obesity, as in a review of 30 studies published in 2006 by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health. Nov 11 , 20, By Nicole Yormark So, not only does drinking soda give you no nutrition, it can actually make it tougher for you to get nutrients from other healthy foods and drinks. More research is needed to find if there is a very strong link between soda consumption and asthma in people of all ages. I wish I could taste something other than water, though. You know it’s high in sugar and calories, but is soda really that bad for you? Nov 5 , 20, By Sammy Nickalls I asked the bartender for a cup of water. I didn’t want to measure how many pounds I lost or gained this past week. If you’ve never experienced a UTI, boy are you lucky. My nausea kicked in from my anxiety and medication, and I desperately wished I could sip on a ginger ale or Sprite. Sorry, soda lovers, but the answer is a resounding “yes.”. Women who drank more than 3 servings of soda a week were more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who didn’t drink soda at all. People with hypertension consume more glucose and fructose than those with regular blood pressure. This is true, I agree with what you have shared here, and I do thank you for it as it gives me a moment to pat myself on the back and say ‘well done to you!’ I spend the rest of the day exhausted and walking around feeling like I’m in a fog. The new coffee maker I bought two weeks ago is mocking me from the kitchen counter. One study reported that soda may be related to asthma development. Because of these empty calories, regular soda drinkers consume 10% more calories daily than those who skip the soft drinks. Gardener's team attempted to control for known heart attack and stroke risk factors, such as poor diet and lack of exercise, but she concedes that these factors could have influenced the findings. It’s not something anyone should care about. CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson, PhD, says sugary soft drinks deserve to be singled out in the battle against obesity because they are the biggest single source of empty calories in the American diet. I’m using this recent diagnosis as a motivator to help me give up all caffeinated and sugary drinks (i.e. Both the amount of sugary soft drinks consumed each year and obesity rates have been increasing steadily over the last few years, leading researchers to believe that the two are related. In addition to higher glucose and fructose levels, people that consume high amounts of these sugars retain more salt in their bodies, resulting in hypertension. "I can't live without chocolates and sweets, and some days I will eat a slab of chocolate, drink about eight cups of coffee with three teaspoons of … At the time, the ABA criticized the review, claiming in a news release that the Harvard researchers “chose to ignore critical articles and studies that contradicted their hypothesis,” such as a 2005 study finding no link between soda and obesity in Canadian children. “Some children drink sodas all day long,” she says. They found that people tend to eat more calories on days when they drink a lot of sugar-sweetened drinks, and that soda drinkers tend to be heavier than people who don't drink soft drinks.