Do you have a one-a-day pop habit?

Don’t be fooled, it also applies to those of you who drink pop even a few times per week. It might be a diet pop or a regular one but it really doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to your health. Both are bad for you and will greatly boost your risk of getting Cancer, Alzheimer’s or Osteoporosis in the years to come. One or more of these diseases and many others like Heart Disease or Diabetes are guaranteed to come into your life if you continue your journey down this syrupy slope.
Let’s look at regular pop for now and leave the diet alone since Aspartame is a whole different story.  Have you read the label on your pop bottle or can lately? The ingredients aren’t among the most nutritious – Carbonated Water, Corn Syrup, Caramel Colour, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavours and Caffeine. There are 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar in each bottle. Since there are about 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon, that equals almost 10 teaspoons of sugar in every drink. Have a couple of these a day and you will be on a big sugary-high. Unfortunately, you won’t be euphoric for long.

Breast Cancer

A high sugar intake has been recently linked to Breast Cancer by the Harvard School of Public Health. This is a fact that has been well-known to the natural health industry for years. Hopefully, this information is now being circulated to all doctors and cancer clinics so that women can become more aware and take precautions when choosing their drinks. Processed sugar delivers a major blow to your immune system which is your natural defense against bacteria, viruses and cancer cells. Soft drink consumption will impair your ability to heal and avoid a recurrence of cancer.

If you want to brag about being cancer-free for the rest of your life, not just for 5 years, you will avoid sugar, especially in soft drinks.  This does not apply to the sugars found naturally in fruits and vegetables.

Research shows that right after you consume a soft drink, the function of the cells in your immune system drops dramatically. In the case of one type of cell in particular, the lymphocyte, which is a type of white blood cell, sugar knocks its defense abilities down by at least 50 percent. This effect lasts for a minimum of five hours. What this means is that right after you drink that pop, your body’s ability to fight off invaders or destroy cancer cells is tremendously weakened for several hours due to the impairment of your white blood cells.

A Live Blood Analysis will show you the condition of your White Blood Cells and the effect that the soft drinks are having on them.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Brain function is also impaired when you drink pop and sugar consumption may be a factor in the growing number of Alzheimer’s cases. Most people will agree that one of their greatest fears is death; however, what most people fear even more than dying is the loss of their mental capabilities. No one wants to forget loved ones and cherished memories, not to mention forgetting how to tie their shoes or needing help to go to the bathroom.

While the exact reasons why we get Alzheimer’s disease remain a mystery, scientists have recently made astounding discoveries that point to a connection between Alzheimer’s and sugar consumption. If the bulk of Alzheimer’s disease can be blamed on eating and drinking sugars, then we have a great opportunity to avoid the mental decay we see so often in the elderly. We can also offer the next generation of seniors, the Baby Boomers, the guarantee that they won’t get it.

Osteoporosis

Many general dietary factors have been suggested as a cause of Osteoporosis but none of them is as compelling as an increased soft drink consumption.
Soft drinks are high in phosphates and have long been suspected of leading to lower calcium and higher phosphate levels in the blood. When phosphate levels are high and calcium levels are low, more calcium is released out of the bones to compensate. Soft drinks contain large quantities of phosphoric acid which, when excreted, pulls the calcium out of the bones and takes it along with it, right down the toilet. As a result, heavy users of soft drinks will eventually be diagnosed with osteoporosis.

According to the Canadian Joint Replacement Register, over 25,000 hip replacement surgeries took place in 2005. That is a 52% increase over the previous 10 years. Knee replacements went up 125% and hip and knee together increased 87%. I find that shocking. No, they weren’t all caused by drinking pop but we could certainly lower the statistics by not helping it along.

A simple test called a Dry Layered Blood Test will show if your bones are starting to deteriorate. This is visible proof of what that one-can-a-day habit is doing to your bones.
The evidence is out there and it is not just my opinion. If you want to avoid any of the aforementioned diseases, do not drink soft drinks. That is your first step. If you are experiencing any of these diseases already or are a survivor, do your body a big favour and stay away from pop so that your body can remain strong and not have a recurrence.
Soft drinks simply do not belong in the North American diet and, if we were to get rid of sugar altogether, or teach people to avoid it, we would all be far healthier and our national health care costs would plummet. I know, it’s easier said than done. Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you. There’s a bed waiting for you in Orthopedics.