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How bad are soft drinks??

beanergrl, with respect, do you have any evidence for the cancer/diabetes charges you lay against softdrinks/caffeine?
i can only find such claims on urban-mythy type pages.
 
well, it would depend on what you consider urban myth from holostic/alternative healing/medicine. let me give you some background first. i am a firm believer in alternative treatments because now i know how the body works. the body is a self healing organ and every cell in it will be replaced every three years. this is how people with cancer, aids, and heart disease heal themselves. they eliminate the toxins and eat what the body was designed for along with detoxification and clenses, all extremly important if you want to heal yourself.(soda is most defintly a toxin, not just because of the caffiene, but cause of everything else in it too.)
any alternative website on medicine, and there are some excellent periodicals too such as prevention magazine which is put out by doctors, that can confirm these things as true.
anyway, with that in mind i went to the american cancer societys website. i fully support them in everyway. even though their research did say that they have yet to prove a relationship with cancer with moderate use, in a study of 64,000 heavy caffiene users their was a strong link. it also said that saccharin and its like sugars can cause bladder stones which in return can cause bladder cancer, thus showing indirect link.
the funding for research that the ACS gets is not enough to explore more indeptly on the correlation between caffeine and cancer.
i believe the monies not their for it because they have more pressing things to research in areas of cancer now and because big soda/big junk food industry is huge in the u.s. just like cigerettes i believe that the makers put and keep the caffeine in there to keep people addicted (i know i sure the hell am). theres been lots of studies done on this. the soda industry says that they add caffiene for the taste.but numerous studies have shown that only 2 in 25 people can even taste the caffiene in soda. here is a good link on it.:
http://www.applesforhealth.com/caffsoda2.html
its just a little brief but im sure you could yield more on the subject with a search.
in current events and politics there is a thread in which i have indeptly posted on how the usda was charged with setting up the food pryamids to favor the dairy and meat industry despite what the health officals wanted because they were largly backed by the dairy and cattlemens associations.this is partially why i dont trust anything that has to do with making money to have advice on my health (i.e. the govt) you can read all about it here:
http://www.bluelight.ru/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=40&t=000537
i also want to add that a search on "breast problems" will yield a lot of sources from university studies, doctors, and the homopathic world about caffiene and fiborus breast. it is not yet proved if the fibors could become cancerous, most have been found not to turn into anything more serious, but real turmors sometimes disquise themselves under these fibors (breast cyst) and go undetected. here is a site on that:
http://altmedicine.about.com/library/weekly/aa122900a.htm
as for stomach and pancreatic cancer, i think its more of a relationship with the carbonation and not the caffiene. it is important to keep your body alkeline. soda can cause your body to become imbalnced. here are some sites, including dr.weils who is very known in the field of medicine,ophra raves of him, and hes wrote several books over the years, that will explain how this works. the link for weils site has referenced soda to cardiovascular disease:
http://www.drweil.com/app/cda/drw_cda.html?command=healthConditionDetail&articleType=Condition&pt=Condition&articleId=21
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http://www.coralconnection.net/cci/soda.html
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this site is from years of research on soda:
http://www.talewins.com/Life/Trend.htm
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when we talk about the link between diabetes and soda you have to understand how insulin works in the body.theres not just a link between the sugar in soda, but also the caffiene.they say even three cups a day may be too much. here are some links about that although, some of the above may have also talked about it:
http://webmd.lycos.com/content/article/1667.52095
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http://www.health-doc.com/healtharticles/Diabetes-children.html
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i want to finish this by adding that i believe that homopathic medicine is much more advanced in trying to find cures then conventional medicine. though, i support use of both at the same time. my story in alternative medicine began when my husband who had psorasis on 90% of his body for 13 years had to stop taking his drugs because we were trying to get pregnant and our baby could be born with club feet or hands. he had to be off for 6 months before i could try to concieve.
for years the medical profession had led him to believe, and they still do to this day, that my husband had to take methotrexate (which is a drug for cancer patients on chemo), and undergo light treatment therapy. along with the methotrexate he took something else to control the itching. because of the methotrexate he had to have liver biopsies. my husband also had to take drugs to control the artheritis (sp) that comes along with his type of psorasis. we were spending over $200 a week on his puva(light) therapy and his drugs. to save money we bought the lights ourselves and made him a lightbox. the box required 12 perscription bulbs at $112 dollars each. oh, and then the light treatments were a catch 22 cause in the long run they cause skin cancer.
anyhow, one day by the grace of God we met some doctors (they really were real doctors of medicine), but they had opened up a healing center where people with terminal diseases go to be led into remission. they told my husband all about psorasis and why he had it and how he could get rid of it, and he took their advice and it worked with in two weeks he had no more. my husband has seen alot of doctors. in fact because of the severity of his psorasis he was a test case for the university of miami. every doctor of conventional medicine told him they dont know what causes it and there is no cure. only drugs to cover it up and hide it temporary while on the drugs. its been 7 years and we have two very healthy children, ones we may not of had had he continued on the meds he was on.
 
You absolutely CAN get Kidney Stones from soda! Especially if you drink a lot of it. I drink Pepsi.....constantly. The only time I really drink water, is when I roll. Is this bad? Yes! I have had two kidney stones surgicly removed! Could it be from Calcium? NO! I hate milk, I am Lactose intolerant, and avoid it as much as humanly possible.
It is terrible for your teeth. I tried to drink diet soda, but, it taste awful! So, I have a dentist that lectures me (for my own good!) about the evils of soda everytime I see him!
Will I quit drinking it? When Hell freezes over! Is this wise? I highly doubt it!
 
Harvard Commentary: Sugar's Role In Diabetes.
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Sugar And Diabetes: Dispelling The Myth
A person with diabetes is generally advised to avoid foods with a high sugar content and to maintain a diet and medication schedule that maintains as normal a blood sugar level as possible. Improved blood sugar control may reduce the chances that certain complications of the disease will develop. But just because the disease is characterized by an elevated blood sugar level and because lowering the blood sugar level is an important goal of therapy, a high-sugar diet does not cause the illness. An elevated blood sugar level is a result of having diabetes, not the cause.
Assuming an elevated blood sugar level is the cause of diabetes is like assuming that coughing is the cause of pneumonia. And not only does sugar not cause diabetes, there is no convincing evidence that sugar causes other problems that it has been blamed for, such as hyperactivity. Many medical myths develop along these lines.

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also, beanergrl, you say "soda is most defintly a toxin, not just because of the caffiene, but cause of everything else in it too"
well, Tea has caffiene in it, does that make tea a toxin?
For women, caffeine has been suspected as a factor in fibrocystic breast disease. But no research supports the connection, and the American Medical Association has stated that there is no association between caffeine intake and fibrocystic breast disease, benign tumors, breast tenderness, or breast cancer--or cancer of any type
that quote is from The Physician and Sportsmedicine a peer-reviewed monthly journal on the medical aspects of exercise, sports, and fitness.
For many years, stories have circulated around the world that artificial sweeteners, especially Aspartame (better known as NutraSweet and Equal), cause several types of cancers, especially brain tumors.
However, a recent article in Chatelaine stated that it has finally been proven that all artificial sweeteners do not cause cancer in humans. The FDA has conducted numerous clinical trials on the long-term effects of these sweeteners, both on animals and human subjects, and the findings were conclusive.
Coffee and soda pop have one thing in common: they both contain a lot of caffeine. Other rumors have surfaced over the past years that long-term consumption of caffeine can cause cancer as well.
These rumors have never been proven as fact, despite numerous clinical trials. Keep in mind though, that moderation with everything is always the safest way to go.

check out this linkon aspartame.
hey jesuslovesraversinseattle, just because you drink a lot of Pepsi, doesn't prove it's the cause of your kidney stones.
it's possible you were going to get them no matter what.
from Urologychannel:
Why people do or do not develop kidney stones is unknown. The disease appears to run in families, but it is unclear whether this is associated with inherited physiological factors or the result of shared family dietary preferences that may predispose a person to stone formation.
Researchers suggest that the mineral composition of drinking water is a factor, but they disagree as to whether "hard" (containing excessive calcium sulfate) or "soft" (containing excessive sodium carbonate) water is to blame. Alcohol consumption also may play a role in stone formation, particularly among drinkers who suffer from gout (painful inflammation of the joints resulting from an imbalance in the body's uric acid metabolism).
Residents of the southeastern United States have the highest incidence of kidney stones in the country, so temperature and body dehydration may be key factors. Southern dietary staples of green vegetables, brewed tea, and fatty foods may also be contributing factors.
Certain diets, particularly those with high-protein, salt, milk, and animal fat, may promote stone formation in people susceptible to the disease.

[ 08 August 2002: Message edited by: sleepingMyDayAway ]
 
That is a very small possibilty though, as far as my predisposition. I am the only one in my family, that we can trace back for at least five generations, that has ever gotten kidney stones.
 
i posted above that i dont believe in what conventional medicine teaches. im not saying that caffeine itself is bad or a toxin. caffiene occurs naturally in things. its the abuse of the caffiene that causes problems. the "other" toxins in the soda would be pretty much everything else thats in it.
as for the fiborous breast. i drank over a two liter a day of soda, i quit for over 6 months and then resumed to drinking only one or two a day. that amount of time to cut back my caffiene and taking extra vitamin e has improved my breast (that sounds strange) considerably. my gyno has been very happy with the results. conventional medicine will always right off natural remedies for something (such as limiting caffiene consumption) in favor of a drug. if you think big tobacco is a money generator for our govt ,you should check out big pharmecutical.
[ 08 August 2002: Message edited by: beanergrl ]
 
Yeah, a false- im assuming- rumor that i heard was that the carmel color in coke can harden in your kidneys forming kidney stones..
But yeah God knows what else is in these things.. All the preservatives (which havent had that many studies done on them), and dyes.. There is a chemical (potassium carbonate??) that has been show to reduce bone density.. I think, dont take my word on it.
 
this is so fusterating--what should we believe? research says this, another says that...how credible are any of these researches?
the most high-brow ones are funded from the goverment, and consequently are the most biased and skewed, and the low-brow ones will always appear to be not as informed as the ones that have the abilities to have more access and control to this information.
and then everyone says regardless of how confusing this is, just practice moderation. What the hell..."moderation" is so vague and relative that it's a really empty sign-off for an issue in such dire need of accurate clarification.
All i can say is that, while i love the taste of coke every once in awhile--its a distinct flavor, it is such a processed drink that it coulnd't possibly be good for you. This right here would make me want to stay away from it as much as possible.
Just like candy and chips, they contain so much processed bullshit ingredients that who knows what and where they come from. I'm still tripping out about how bad this processed monosodium glutamate(sp?) igredient thats present in chips and tons of other shit is.
while we're on the subject of coke, does anyone know what the hell the "secert" 7th ingredient in making coke is and why its sooo secretive? My mom says it's essences of lavendar--well what is that? she says that's what gives it its coloring.
I've heard so much hype about the 7th ingredient too--like how only 2 members of the coke company are allowed to know it. Whats the deal with this??
And what about cocaine being in coke --what was the purpose of that? i heard it was to get drinkers addicted --but since when can you get heavily buzzed off coke by drinking it?
please inform me...
 
The bottom line is that if you drink soft drinks in moderate amounts, you should have no problems. If you guzzle litres a day of the stuff, you might get some problems. Just like all our favourite things (food, alcohol, drugs) MODERATION is the key.
 
I don't have any scientific facts, but here's some interesting information that I foun somewhere:
75% of Americans are chronically
dehydrated. (Likely applies to half of the world pop.)
In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50 less likely to develop bladder cancer.
Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?
==================================================
COKE
No wonder coke tastes soooo good:
1. In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and.....Let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, Remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.
FYI:
1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its' Ph is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days.
2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!
Still Want To Drink Up?
 
^
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Once again, a greenlighter shows the appropriateness of his/her status. Everything you wrote is taken word for word from the web, and almost every claim is totally false. If you would have cut and pasted these myths from http://hoaxinfo.com/cokeacid.htm you might have seen that (in addition to what you posted word for word without giving credit) no research supports these claims, and as the author said in response, "Do your part: Delete."
 
why people want to try to defend soda is beyond me.i guess they are in denial. i was once like that myself. so what if those are cut and pasted. they are all true. why dont you take a can of coke and use them for those things. it really does work and its recommended by people who give out household hints for cleaning like maryellen and heloise.(the toilets and battery terminal, and grease cutter)
and the water for prostrate cancer has been in every nutrition mag i have picked up in the past few months- veg times, prevention,mother earth, ect..
maybe one can wont put much of an impact on your body, but more then a few a day might. and i say might, even though i know it will.
when i worked in the holostic healing center, soda was not allowed. why do you suppose this is that doctors would not allow it? cause its BAD for you, and its not going to do your body any good.
having an understanding of how the body works will help you. everything that you eat your body has to process it as one of three things. 1) foods that are good for you will help heal your body. they will heal disease that has started and aid in your good health, such as fruits and veggies,nuts,ect..
2) neutreul foods which do neither, hurt or help your body.
and 3) toxins, which will cause cellular change to happen, which will lead to diseases including cancer. toxins include pork,whole milk cheeses, processed foods, ect.
say, if you have cancer. the first thing you want to do is eliminate any toxins from your body so it doesnt have to process them. by eliminating the toxins and eating the foods that will heal you, is partially how people go into remission from diseases. nobody who has cancer or aids who has came into remission has done it by drinking soda and eating cheeseburgers. its just not going to happen.
so all you people who want to write off soda being bad for you as an urban myth , i call you a sheep. someone who follows what other people are feeding them. look at what soda is. what do you get from it? there is nothing good for your body at all in a can of soda. use your head and think about it. how can this really be good for me ? and stop making up stupid excuses like "its a myth". cause someday you may be sorry. but go ahead trust the govt. they are who told us orginally that ecstasy came from cocaine and herion mixed together, or that we actually put a man on the moon. bwhahahahhah, i could go on.
[ 10 August 2002: Message edited by: beanergrl ]
 
silerfucked- you are correct in your assumption of caffiene on your bones. this info is all over the internet at almost every site about osterporsis and other related bone conditions that i ran accross.i didnt post the links cause i was focusing on the diabetes part and cancer links. for those of you doing a search on that youll find plenty about it on your so called legitimate sites. it was probably on your urban myth sites at one time too intill too many doctors finally came out and said that its true.
 
AbraMontague-First of all I have been comin to this site for about 3 years (I just recently remade a login name)...so techically I've been here for longer than you... Second...I got those in an email awhile ago and I didn't give credit because I don't know who wrote it...And some of those happen to be true because I've tried them. As beanergrl said, I can't see why anyone would want to defend Coke...It's bad for you...Is having a drink every now and then gonna hurt you? No... but it sure as hell ain't gonna help you...
 
Okay...Maybe this is not going to be a popular comment, but, REALLY people.....we ALL know that MANY of the things we do are NOT Healthy!
When is the last time your Doctor told you to go home and drop some "E?" Or Acid, or Meth, or whatever other Drugs we may (or may not?) be doing?
I have to say that last I heard smoking was still not supposed to be good for you either!
I am sure that I am not the only one old enough, on here, to have heard that some shampoo's actually contain formaldahyde (Yes! that is the stuff they preserve Dead stuff with!), M&M's and many other things were reported to have dyes that MIGHT cause Cancer, tap water in some places can cause Cancer, lead was in paint and dishes.....Oh Lord! I could go on and on!
The bottom line really is this.....choose your own poison, do it in moderation, if you can, and try to balance it out with other things that will make you a Healthy person.
Oh, and just so you know, I can Honestly say that I am not the model of Healthy eating, or Lifestyles, and have never claimed to be. Knowing what is right, and doing it are NOT the same thing.
 
^^ yes, this is true, but we are talking about soda only. you dont even want to get me going about shampoos,gmos, poison in your toothpaste,cleaning products, ect.... just soda in this thread. ;)
 
As beanergrl said, I can't see why anyone would want to defend Coke...It's bad for you...Is having a drink every now and then gonna hurt you? No... but it sure as hell ain't gonna help you...
OK, I'm sorry for the cheap greenlighter insult. But my point is still the same. If you follow the link I posted, another person who recieved the email tried out several of the things and more or less disproved the numerous exaggerations and false claims.
As many other people would agree, the end doesn't justify the means at a site dedicated to reliable drug information. You hate coke? That's cool. You want everyone in the whole wide world to hate coke too? That's cool too. Do you propagate unfounded/unreliable (re:random email with no known author or source but lots of ridiculous info) claims and other misinformation just to support your stance? Not if you want to be taken seriously. The ONDCP, DEA, and many other government agencies have used this strategy throughout the drug war, have been around for decades (not years), and suffice to say their opinions are taken with a grain of salt by most bl'ers.
Click to expand...
 
word.
Oh yeah.. thanx for all the replies.. Sadly ive relapsed into the 3-4 ""carbonated beverages""a day.. But ive found a new way to taper down.. Chew coffee beans!! Im sure this is destroying my body too, but then so is the massive amounts of amphetmaines surging thru my blood.. jk.
 
AM-i dont really care what your little link from a disgruntled coke lover says. many of those things are true. the coke for cleaning toilets has been shown on oprah, rosie, several home tips books, ect. i am a stay at home mom and i watch alot of these kinds of shows and i assure you they are nothing new. once my friend left a can of coke at my house. when she left i went to pour it out but then i thought of how it was coke and decided to take it to our garage toilet to see if it really worked (garage toilet doesnt get cleaned like the house ones.) i dumped the coke in it for 20 mins or so and when i came back it had worked. my neighboor who is a mechanic also does really use it on battery terminals too. so take it for what you will. you are so quick to write it all off as a hoax from what you have read but many people consider it to be very legitimate.
they add phosphoras to soda to keep your teeth from instantly corroding while drinking it, but that doesnt mean anything to you? heres some sites about the damage soda can have on your bones. these studies say that more the two cans a day is harmful.it tells of how soda leeches calcium from your bones. you can try to find some kind of site that tries to claim that these studies are inconclusive like you did with the others (but notice how those so called studies on your links all say that theres not enough research done, or something, none of them actually said "soda has been found not to cause these problems for sure, drink up", and the aspartame myth site was very lame and weak and alot of sites that i can find can rebuke that one), but the research on bone density has been being studied for awhile now and its pretty well known in the medical field, apparently, from the search i just did.:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/1998/980709.htm
http://forums.obgyn.net/endo/ENDO.9808/0477.html
its just a matter of time and enough physicans coming forth and demanding that their findings on soda and its relationship to various health problems, be treated with the seriousness that it deserves. if you use your head and think about it soda is not so much unlike candy. would any doctor in the world tell you that candy (in the amounts that it would take to equal the grams of sugar as in soda)is safe to consume every day a few times daily? no, i dont think so.and i wouldnt trust a doctor who told me it was safe to drink soda everyday either.
[ 11 August 2002: Message edited by: beanergrl ]
 
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