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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

#211

Post by clouden »

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…

A p-value of 0.04 is not very strong evidence of an effect, though it is significant at the 0.05 level. This study says at most that the effect should continue to be studied.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#212

Post by nkozyra »

kalleboo wrote: post #206
nkozyra wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The effect were also not seen in sweetened non-carbonated beverages, so it must be some interaction between the sweetening and the carbonation.

I would be careful with words like "must" when there are this many variables involved. It could be fiber, the types of sugar, etc. We do know that carbonation alone isn't causing this and fruit juice doesn't cause this.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#213

Post by kissickas »

adventured wrote: post #175
novalis78 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notwithstanding the golden "correlation != causation" adage, I found that only two things are truly consumed in much larger quantities in America than any other country I know: soda and high fructose corn syrup...at the same time being the only country with a 35% obesity rate...hmmmm

Not true. Saudi Arabia is the most obese country on earth, at 70%. Britain, Australia, and New Zealand are also substantially obese. All of those are coming increasingly close to catching America in obesity, with their obesity levels exploding higher.

Here's the latest data I know of on this:

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi/components/...

The United States comes in at 8th highest obesity rate, after Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, South Africa, and Mexico.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#214

Post by wnevets »

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?

Like most junk food its a habit you pick up as a child and continue without realizing just how awful it taste. Its sold & advertised everywhere which makes it hard to escape.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#215

Post by lotsofmangos »

colechristensen wrote: post #189
Freestyler_3 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how about sugar in honey? I just wonder.

Both honey and high fructose corn syrup are > 85% water, fructose, and glucose in ratios similar enough to not make a difference. Unless something in the remaining few percent is protective for honey and or harmful for HFCS, it's doubtful that there's a difference health-wise.

Health-wise, I know which one I would be reaching for first if I needed to treat a wound. I haven't yet heard of medical grade HFCS. http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/11/1677.full

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#216

Post by driverdan »

I don't see anyone discussing that this is based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). NHANES is all self-reported data meaning its accuracy isn't great. It's a decent way of looking for potential research topics but is in no way definitive.

Any papers coming from NHANES data should be considered pre-research. Real data on this topic will come from properly controlled studies.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#217

Post by jongraehl »

Since she finds a strong shorter-telomere association in neither equally sweet juices NOR in diet soda, this result probably just unhealthy-lifestyle-correlation (e.g. drug addicts and undiagnosed diabetics drink more soda). Also, “The extremely high dose of sugar that we can put into our body within seconds by drinking sugared beverages is uniquely toxic to metabolism” (from her Time interview) seems an overreach. A properly functioning metabolism can handle some sugar, even in a spike.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#218

Post by pseud0r »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27
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…

> So they saw 'aging' with sugar-sweetened soda, the opposite with fruit juice, and no significant difference with diet sodas or non-carbonated sugary sodas. What compounds in soda are most likely causing this? If they're not seeing the results in fruit juice, its not sugar causing the damage.

The sugar is causing the damage. Some studies also show some types of fruit juice being damaging, filtered juice being less healthy than unfiltered ones for example.

One quote from Wikipedia on the issue

"The total state of oxidative and peroxidative stress on the healthy body, with the AGE-related damage to it, is proportional to the dietary intake of exogenous (preformed) AGEs and the consumption of sugars with a propensity towards glycation such as fructose and galactose."

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#219

Post by pseud0r »

jongraehl wrote: post #217

Since she finds a strong shorter-telomere association in neither equally sweet juices NOR in diet soda, this result probably just unhealthy-lifestyle-correlation (e.g. drug addicts and undiagnosed diabetics drink more soda). Also, “The extremely high dose of sugar that we can put into our body within seconds by drinking sugared beverages is uniquely toxic to metabolism” (from her Time interview) seems an overreach. A…

Sugar can increase aging, see for example this for starts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-product

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#220

Post by thaumasiotes »

mikeyouse wrote: post #110
weinzierl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length. I don't understand how the carbonation can have an effect. It's just CO2 and a little bit of H2CO3, neither of which is metabolized.

The results probably vary due to the different classes of beverages, it's not like they make a Coke Zero-Carbonation. I'm actually having a hard time coming up with non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages as I don't drink any, but I'm picturing stuff like Honest Tea or those Starbucks Frappuccino things.

The Arizona, Gatorade, and Snapple brands would be appalled. SoBe, too.

(I'm not a huge fan of carbonation, except, oddly, for pineapple-flavored drinks. But mostly I just don't get why you'd want to take a perfectly good drink and add pain to it.)

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