Recent research reports from the United Kingdom say that the common preservative used in carbonated drinks can switch off essentail parts of DNA, which may bring on premature aging and trigger diseases associated with old age.

The preservative is sodium benzoate, and it has been used for many years by the soft drink industries. Sodium benzoate, is derived from benzoic acid, and is used to prevent mold in drinks like Coca-Cola, Oasis, Dr. Pepper, etc., It is also used in pickles and sauces.

It has been discovered that when sodium benzoate is mixed with vitamin C in soft drinks, it creates the carcinogenic substance benzene. United Kingdom Professor, Peter Piper of Sheffield University has shown through his experiments that benzoate damages DNA in the energy-producing mitochondria of cells.

"These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether," Piper said. "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of aging."¹

The World Health Organization, the Food Standards Agency in the UK, and the US Food and Drug Administration all say that sodium benzoate is safe. Professor Piper, however, says that FDA tests are out of date.

"The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are completely safe," Piper said. "By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago."¹

Soda Pop as Part of the American Diet

Carbonated soda pop makes up 25% of all the kinds of liquid that is drunk in the US. It was estimated in the year 2000 that 15 billion gallons of soda pop were sold in the US alone. This could average out to more than one 12 ounce bottle per day for each person in our population; but what is really of concern, is that we know each person does not drink soda pop and that there are only a few of the millions that even drink soda pop, so what that means is that some of our population are getting an extremely high amount of pop each day.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, children are the largest consumer group of pop drinkers because of the heavy emphasis focused by the marketers on the youth population.

Not only are carbonated drinks unhealthy because they contain large quantities of sugar, calories and caffeine, but they also have no significant nutritional value and have shown a strong link with scientific proof between pop consumption and childhood obesity.

"The British medical journal, 'The Lancet' published the research from a team of Harvard researchers that presented the first evidence linking soda pop consumption to childhood obesity. They found that 12-year-olds who drank soda pop regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't. For each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soda pop consumed during the nearly 2-year study, the risk of obesity increased 1.6 times. Obesity experts called the Harvard study findings important and praised the study for being prospective. The Harvard researchers spent 19 months following the children, rather than just capturing a snapshot of data from only a single day. It is considered statistically more significant to conduct a study over a long period of time."²

Pop Affects the Bones, Too

Soda pop, as a carbonated drink has the active ingredient of phosphoric acid. According to the science of the importance of pH balance, anything that becomes too acidic in the digestion process, taken in excess, can be detrimental. The pH of most soda pop is 2.8 on the scale of 1-7, seven being the most alkaline. The importance of feeding the body with foods and drinks that provide that alkalizing effect is the only way to attain that balanced pH.

Phosphoric acid can also leach calcium from bones and could be a major contributor to broken bones and in osteoporosis. Phosphorus, occurs naturally in some foods and is used as an additive in many others, it is thought that phosphorus can promote the loss of calcium, thus weakening bones. With less calcium available, the bones become more porous and prone to fracture. There should be concern how even a few cans of soda pop per day may be damaging to growth in the critical bone-building years of adolescence and childhood.

Here is a bit of information that came to me over the net.

Osteoporosis is becoming an epidemic as our soda-drinking youth become adults.

Water or Coke?

�WATER

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half the world population)

2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.

3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as 3%.

4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

5. Lack of water, the No. 1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6. �Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of�water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on�the computer screen or on a printed page.

8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%., and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water you should drink every day?

COKE

1. In many states the Highway Patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.

2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.

3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the 'real thing' sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.

4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers:�Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.

6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes

7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.

8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run�through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.


FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.

2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial trucks must use a Hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.

3. The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean engines of their trucks for about 20 years!

Now the question is, would you like a glass of Water?or Coke?

Natural human processes are being studied on a continuing basis, and the effects of substances in individuals can vary from person to person because of the differences in thier day to day environmental stresses, as well as their food and drink consumption. And, how chemicals change when processed for human consumption, as well as how they are "extracted" from natural environments, are still a big part of the mystery of how processing affects their chemical structure hence, how they are synthesized in the overall human processes of digestion and then used as nutrition for energy.

Briefly here, I have presented only a few of the many medical concerns that are being researched on consumption of carbonated soda pop. Diet pops have even more aspects that we should be concerned with; look for more research.

Blessings and Good Health to You All !

¹ Excerpts from an article in "The Independent" newspaper from the UK

²Washington Post February 27, 2001; Page HE10

Here are some websites that the graphs and pictures came from...I haven't checked each of them out, but you can get much more information on the concerns of drinking carbonated soda pop from them; dumpsoda.org; flex-news-food.com; leyhian83.blogspot.com; kobelco.co.jp; surfputah,blogspot.com; scielo.unam.mx; juicing-for-health.com; anatomy.iupui.edu; clarion.org

check out www.reynoldsoffice.com for pH information, or do a google search for pH (it is a very important health clue)