In
the guise of civilisation, the eating habits of mankind have changed
over the years from wholly organic natural foods and drinks to processed
stocks. From Washington D.C to Manila and Lagos, gulping carbonated
drinks with meals or as a substitute to meals is the rule rather than
the exception today. Many people, young and old, take between two and
four bottles of soft drinks daily. Those who detest alcohol on account
of religious faith also take soft drinks to unwind.
Soft drinks are being marketed with
frenzy blitz in the media, with marketing messages directed at the youth
mainly. Soft drinks are also formulated to make their intake addictive.
Once you hooked to any of the brands, you will always want to drink it,
not minding the hazard it constitutes to your health.
For instance, eating a meal of white
rice or fufu with beef in soup made with ocean of palm oil and washed
down with one or two bottles of soft drink is a great assault on the
digestive system. The body requires a large quantity of insulin and
digestive enzymes to digest every item in such a meal. Yet, spicing
meals with soft drink on a daily basis as many Nigerians do exerts too
much pressure on the pancreas and hastens its exhaustion. No wonder
there is an epidemic of type 2 diabetes in our country.
People addicted to soft drinks rarely
stop gulping them unless they experience the ‘bitter taste’ of these
sweet drinks. But how bitter is the taste of soft drinks? This question
can be best answered by the tragic experiences of two people – a student
at the University of Delhi, India and a Lagos-based politician.
There was a competition among the
students of University of Delhi as to who could drink the most bottles
of a popular brand of soft drinks. The winner, a boy, drank eight
bottles but died soon after his victory. What could be bitter than the
loss of life through a drink certified fit for human consumption?
The bitter experience of the Lagos-based
politician with soft drinks has not cost him his life but his travails
are not what anybody would wish to have. He is battling with heart
disease and rheumatoid arthritis that not only incapacitate him
physically, but also drain his life savings. But how did he get into
these life-threatening problems? While jostling for elective position
during the two –partly system of the Babangida era, he hardly had time
to eat due to endless meetings and intrigues that characterise Nigerian
politics. Rather, he resorted to taking soft drinks – six jumbo bottles
(orobo) of one of the popular brands everyday. His body weight
ballooned, causing heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis. He had
suffered near fatal heart attack in the course of his travails. Even
with a university degree in science, he has no faint idea as to the
inherent danger in using soft drinks as a substitute for meals.
Due to a lack of diet education many
people who gulp soft drinks daily do not know that these drinks are a
harbinger of misery in different forms – obesity, diabetes,
hypertension, cancer, multiple sclerosis and poor vision.
But what exactly makes soft drinks
dangerous stuff? Soft drinks contain refined sugar or its substitute,
which increase the risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart problems.
A study done at the Boston University School of Medicine indicated that
drinking more than one bottle of soft drink a day is associated with 50
per cent increase risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The
lead author of the study, Ramachandran Vasan, said, “Soft drinks carry
the same risk whether they are low-calorie or regular.”
The refined sugar in soft drinks also
poses other threats to human health. According to a Japanese researcher,
Dr Jin Otsuka, “the more refined sugar in the diet, the greater the
incidence of myopia.”
Some soft drinks are also made with
non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharine, which are not
only toxic, but have also been linked to a number of health disorders.
According to research done by Arizona State University’s Biochemical
Department, aspartame has been found to cause shooting pain, numbness,
cramps, dizziness, headache, brain seizure, joint pain, blurred vision,
memory loss and enlarged kidney and liver. Soft drinks also contain
caffeine, which depletes magnesium and makes drinkers vulnerable to
constriction of blood vessels, depletion of key hormones, elevated blood
sugar level, heart problem, and brain dysfunction.
The acids in soft drinks disrupt the
alkaline-acid balance of the body, thus causing acidosis that triggers
ulcers, arthritis, diabetes and cancer.
The common chemical additive in soft
drinks is phosphate, a heavy-duty iron blocker. Therefore, heavy
drinkers of soft drinks may be deficient in iron, a condition that
promotes development of tumour. The prevalence of uterine fibroids,
benign tumours among women may be associated with high consumption of
soft drinks. While it is incontrovertible that tumour can develop in any
part of the body, including the breast, how is the current war against
breast cancer in our country addressing the possible link of
over-consumption of soft drinks to this scourge?
Soft drinks are bottled with carbon
dioxide, a waste product of metabolism that you and I must exhale to be
in perfect health. But those who prefer soft drinks to water are
increasing carbon dioxide, while decreasing oxygen in their body system.
Yet, inadequate oxygen supply to the body could cause impairment of the
immune system and gradual cellular death in the heart, kidneys, eyes
and the brain. In fact, the brain suffers the most telling effect of low
level of oxygen in the body. It needs about 20 per cent of oxygen
inhaled to function optimally. But as we age, the blood vessel that
supplies the brain with oxygen tends to clog and this may cause stroke,
memory loss, senility and nerve damage. A study by a Japanese scientist,
Kazuhiko Asai, found that all diseases are caused by insufficient
oxygen supply to the area of the body where it is needed. The take home
message is: we could prevent a number of diseases, which cause misery
and ultimately shorten life by avoiding soft drinks.
No comments:
Post a Comment