As a dentist, I am on a permanent crusade against sugar because of its negative effect on teeth, but I’m beginning to think that tooth decay is the least of your worries if you are a big soda consumer. Here are some disturbing facts from a recent article in Bottom Line Personal.
The American Heart Association says that the safe upper limit for sugar consumption (above what is naturally present in foods) is six teaspoons for women and nine for men. Simple enough. But a 12 ounce can of cola contains 10 teaspoons of sugar. So do bottled iced teas and sports drinks. Even real fruit juices like orange, grape or apple contain about 10 teaspoons of sugar per 12 ounce glass. (It’s true that fruit sugar occurs naturally, but it creates the same disruption of body chemistry as added white sugar.)
So how many servings of these drinks do you consume in a year? If you are an average American, it’s 600 cans of soda and 125 12-ounce servings of juice. When you do the math, that’s about 7300 teaspoonfuls of sugar. American Heart Association guidelines are about 2000 teaspoons for women and 3000 for men.
Without getting into the gory details, in addition to tooth decay, excess sugar consumption is associated with calcium depletion (as in osteoporosis), diabetes, autoimmune diseases, high blood pressure, pancreatic cancer, gout and asthma, just to name a few. These are all chronic diseases, meaning that they gradually diminish our quality of life. Said another way, we are killing ourselves a little bit at a time.
So what can you do? Switch to diet soda? I’m afraid not. In a study of 2500 people, those who drank diet soda daily were 61% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those who didn’t. On top of that, it’s hard to quit soft drinks because there are actual withdrawal symptoms, like headaches and cravings. Here are some strategies for quitting – switch from soda to fruit juice and water it down – about 25% juice and 75% water. If you like fizzy drinks, mix soda water with fruit juice or iced tea, about 50% of each. You can also add lemon slices or a little pureed fruit to good old water. There are a few commercially available beverages that are acceptable. Look for brands like Metromint or Hint. Be careful of so-called health drinks like Vitamin Water, however. Reading the label may reveal high sugar levels even though the name implies otherwise.
I have one more observation. Unless you have been living in a cave, you know that health care costs are one of the biggest economic challenges we face as a nation. The folks we have put in Washington don’t seem to have the slightest idea how to deal with it. What do you suppose the long-term economic benefit of reduced sugar consumption might be? Have you heard anyone in Washington talk about it in a serious manner? Neither have I.
