Sodas, energy drinks, and sugar-laden beverages are basically heart attacks in a can. Vasanti Malik, a nutrition research scientist from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston stated, “Soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages can seriously damage heart health.”
“Consuming [just] two servings of sugar-sweetened beverages has been linked to a 35 percent greater risk of heart attack or fatal heart disease, a 16 percent increased risk of stroke and as much as a 26 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” states everydayhealth.com.
Sugar is the Enemy; Not Fat
Low fat foods don’t help you lose weight. Sounds backwards when body fat is, well, what kills a trim figure. Companies entice you with the low fat content and calorie count. But then they’re packed with sugar to make up for bland taste. All that sugar overwhelms your liver, pushing your body into survival mode. And when that happens, it starts storing everything it can as body fat.
Still don’t believe me? Think of it this way: humans have been eating fats for far longer than sugary items. Society as a whole has stayed pretty slim. When companies entered the nutrition scene in 1959, they touted fat was the enemy and pumped low fat foods full of sugar. In a matter of years obesity became an epidemic and incidences of heart disease skyrocketed. And it’s only gotten worse. Heart disease used to be rare. You can thank both Ancel Keys and the sugar industry for misleading society for decades. Sugar has been proven to be more addictive than cocaine.
Top Sugar-Laden Drinks in the World
Research shows the maximum amount of sugar an individual wants to limit themselves to on a daily basis is only 36 grams, which equates to about 9 teaspoons. This includes sugars naturally found in fruits and vegetables.
So, how much sugar is in your favorite drinks? You can go to caffeineinformer.com for detailed lists on popular beverages. Here are the top 10 sugar-laden sodas and energy drinks:
The Damage
Sugar combined with carbonation creates quite an acidic, deadly concoction. The human body was not meant to handle such substances at the rate we consume them. It’s causing so many once-rare diseases to grow to epidemic proportions.
If you want to lose weight, the most life-changing thing you can do is cut out sugar and any refined carbs. You might feel worried about having enough energy to make it through the day. Let’s take a moment to explain why you’re so much better off ditching sugary drinks in the long run, in addition to what we’ve already said.
Besides a lack of sleep, you get tired because of nutrient deficiencies slowing you down. However, society has developed the habit of reaching for coffee, energy drinks and such to perk us back up, despite the crash that follows. Caffeine molecules fit perfectly in the receptors your brain that tell you when you’re tired. This is what makes them so effective. The bad thing is they dam the flow of chemicals until caffeine is all used up, thus the unavoidable energy crash.
What’s worse, this snowballs into nutrient deficiencies. Caffeine burns through a ton of essential vitamins, most notably limiting iron absorption by 80%, making you feel terrible if you don’t have a high enough dose of caffeine in your system to mask it. And if you continue to use and abuse caffeine, you’re, quite honestly, slowly killing yourself.
And now let’s add sugar into that picture.
Your liver is the only organ capable of metabolizing sugar in the form of fructose, but even that is limited. Feed your body sugar in synthetic and high fructose syrup form and it’s actually toxic to your liver.
Your body is designed to have just one teaspoon of sugar in your blood at all times. Adding just a few more teaspoons increases the risk of going into a hyperglycemic coma. However, your pancreas secretes insulin into your bloodstream to keep sugar levels where they need to be. Constantly bombarding your body with sugary food and drinks forces your pancreas to secrete more and more insulin as your body grows desensitized to it, in a sense. And before you know it, you have diabetes, kidney problems, and are well on the path to developing dementia.
How to Get Back on Track
Dietary changes are you biggest ally, along with supplementation to keep things simpler.
The top foods to keep your sugar levels happy and energy levels up are apples, cinnamon, citrus fruit, cold water fish, fiber-rich foods, legumes (beans), green tea, nuts, and dark leafy greens. Some will add dark chocolate and steak to that list. The problem with dark chocolate is it’s easy to overindulge. And while steak contains CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), you’d have to eat pound after pound of steak to actually get enough CLA to make a difference, and gain a bunch of weight you’re trying to avoid putting on in the first place.
With sugar hiding in food and drink in more places than you might expect, supplementing your diet with whole food nutrients can be your most effective tool with reaching optimal health.