For many years, it has been well known that consuming copious quantities of fizzy drinks would "rot your teeth."
Who hasn't as a child placed a copper coin in some cola and marvelled as the cola turned it all shiny, due to the acid eating away at the tarnished metal exterior of the coin? But how many considered that this same acid was in fact dissolving your bones as the calcium (alkali) neutralises the acid.
Next up are the huge amounts of sugar added to soft drinks. Often in the form of glucose syrup or fructose, which the body cannot readily deal with and stores as fat - no wonder the world, is getting obese!
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener added to soft drinks, especially the low-calorie varieties. Search the Internet and you will find this is being linked to the increase in certain types of cancer notably brain tumours.
The
latest revelation is the cancer threat posed by a caramel colouring added to soft drinks such as cola. The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing new data from research that shows varying levels of 4-methylimdazole (4-MI) in 12 brands of soft drink. The 4-MI additive is on the California health authority's list of cancer causing agents and, as a result, drinks that exceed the presumed "safe" levels are require to carry a cancer warning. Those that have reduced levels do not need to have a warning.
Nevertheless, this is yet another health concern from soft drinks. Could fizzy drinks be the 21st century tobacco?
Well I will never have another can! It is time that fizzy drinks were taxed in the UK as they are in many countries throughout the world. I would suggest that £1.50 a litre a can should be a start. We need to fund the diabetes epidemic somehow.