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Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

time.com

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Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#81

Post by nkozyra »

wiredfool wrote: post #20
mikeyouse wrote: post #3

The key results from the paper: After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed betwe…

I wonder what would happen with half fruit juice, half carbonated water.

Given that the effects were not seen in diet soda, it's fair to discount the possibility that carbonation plays a role. Since fruit juice has a mild lengthening effect, it might be minimally positive.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#82

Post by anigbrowl »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #69
anigbrowl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more than one kind of sugar. Juices have both fructose and glucose; the former is more likely to be stored by the liver, the latter is deployed more widely around the body. Soda has much higher levels of fructose than glucose, thanks to all that high-fructose corn syrup that has become so popular with food manufacturers. There seems to be mounting evidence that high fructose intake is correlated with increase…

HFCS is equal parts fructose and glucose, same as sucrose. Lustig is an obese laughing stock and derided by real nutritionists.

So you're saying that high fructose corn syrup is not in fact high in fructose? Perhaps you could address the linked study from the article, which found fructose:glucose proportions in sweetened beverages to the be in a ~60:40 ratio rather than ~50:50. The full paper is available at the link with no paywall, so feel free to point out how you consider it deficient. Also, I can see for myself that Lustig is not obese. Perhaps you would care to cite some of these 'real nutriotionists'.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#83

Post by strick »

Afforess wrote: post #77
geoka9 wrote: post #9

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

I drink (diet) soda because I need caffeine in the mornings. I am not a morning person and never have been. Without caffeine, I will not be mentally alert before 11am. I hate the taste of coffee, so soda it is.

Search Amazon for penguin mints. I used them to wean off coffee as an experiment (now I drink coffee again these days). It takes about 3 penguin mints to equal one cola beverage.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#84

Post by prawn »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #76
bequanna wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes! I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. Childhood obesity is a serious issue. Heck, even type-2 childhood diabetes is a growing concern. Do you have any support at all to justify this claim?

Sugars in the context of adequate minerals, vitamins, and proteins support growth. Foods like fruit juices and potatoes are nearly perfect in this sense. If you want short, dumb kids please starve them of highly usable metabolic energy and nutrients. Obviously this is not an invitation to stuff a sedentary kid full of excess calories to the point of adiposity. Be sensible. Cite the study is a game for retards in thes…

Flagged for "retards".

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#85

Post by robotgrill »

DanBC wrote: post #55
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children have massive metabolic demands for sugars to support growth. Children should have as much undiluted fruit juice as they want.

You are wrong and you should declare your weird shilling for the sugar industry. http://www.child-smile.org.uk/parents-and-carers/birth-to-3-... > Small amounts of pure, unsweetened fruit juice should be diluted half and half (50% juice to 50% water), or with a greater proportion of water to juice if your child is thirsty. > Juice should be restricted to mealtimes only in a free-flow cup, not a feeding bottle.

I only drink diluted juice because it's what I was raised to drink. Pure juice, especially the grape variety, is far too sweet by itself.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#86

Post by qu4z-2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #68
aaron-lebo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any reason to discount the authors, but a couple of things to keep in mind: 1) This is Time's popularization of their study, so Time is naturally going to put forward the most interesting and least nuanced claims of theirs. 2) They may be accomplished researchers, but if you are well-versed in an academic discipline and read material in it, it quickly becomes clear that sometimes points which seem obvious…

The Time article is actually a very dry summary of the study's key finding, written in colloquial but not sensational language. It also has a link to the study in the very first sentence. I found the full text very easily: http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a... The poster above could easily have satisfied his/her own curiosity on this point. 'Did researchers control for [extremely obvious thi…

In fact, in this case it's more or less exactly like 'correlation is not causation'.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#87

Post by copperx »

rquantz wrote: post #47
josephpmay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of factors that I can think of: 1) Sugar is addicting, and there is significantly more sugar in soda than other drinks [Google it] 2) Soda is very refreshing. This is important in warmer climates. If it is 98 degrees outside (37C), an orange Fanta does a much better job of making me feel better than just water 3) Soda is available everywhere and is the de-facto drink with most meals. Just like Italians drink…

3) Soda is available everywhere and is the de-facto drink with most meals. I don't remember the last meal I ate with adults where people ordered soda. It may be that every once in a while I'll be around a recovering alcoholic who orders a soda, but usually it seems they order something like sparkling water. It's probably a regional/class thing, since I live in NYC. Maybe in the middle of the country or in a working c…

It is definitely a class thing. You must be hanging out with the upper class, my friend.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#88

Post by hughes »

tjr wrote: post #17
geoka9 wrote: post #9

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

For some people, it seems to be. I suspect part of the issue is how abundantly available it is. For example, you go to the theater, and you can either buy a single bottle of water, or a cup of soda with free refills. Many restaurants offer only local tap water as a water choice, which varies in good taste. Lots of vending machines offer only soda, no water, again leaving the water-drinkers to search for a hopefully-c…

Even at the workplace, many offices offer unlimited free soda as a perk. I almost never touch the stuff and would love to have access to healthier options. I haven't seen a single job posting featuring regularly stocked fresh fruit as an incentive.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#89

Post by robotgrill »

novalis78 wrote: post #64
Gracana wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the carbonation. When I realized that's the part I really enjoyed, I started drinking seltzer water (and a lot of it, because I didn't get the uncomfortable feeling that sugary soda gave me.)

the other weird thing is how hard it is to find carbonated seltzer in America... in Western Europe you basically trip over container loads of the stuff at every supermarket's entrance. Makes you wonder if carbonated seltzer is what might help change North American soda consumption habits

Costco carries seltzer, but only in 1L plastic bottles. It tends to be exceptionally cheap.
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