Soda is bad for you but did you know that even diet soda is bad for you? Regular soda is high in calories and full of loaded sugar, which will cause your waist line to bulge while the additives in diet soda lead you to want to drink and eat more sugars. Researchers have even linked drinking soda to other things besides weight gain such as, kidney problems, diabetes and even some cancers. Soda is also a source of caffeine which is a diuretic.
Weight Gain
Drinking soda drinking is linked to weight gain. Soda has a very high sugar content. Even diet soda’s with artificial sweeteners have been linked to craving more of the real thing and this can cause you to eat more sugary foods and drinks than you normally would. That snowball effect is what leads to weight gain i.e the consumption of more calories.
Kidney Problems
Julie Lin, M.D., a kidney specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, studied the soda habits and kidney health of more than 3,000 women for 11 years. “What we observed,” Dr. Lin says, “was an association between drinking two or more servings of diet soda per day and faster kidney function decline.” In fact, the kidneys of diet soda drinkers declined at three times the rate typical of aging. This is not a good thing because your kidneys act as a filter of toxins in your body. When they are effected so many organs in your body are effected and could even lead to diabetes.
How to Kick The Habit
Try drinking more water. It is the best way to quench your thirst, the truth is, that doesn’t always make for the most appetizing replacement. Try making the change slowly. Each day take out one glass of soda more than the previous day and replace it with water. Soon you will be drinking all water and your body will thank you for it.
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