Drinking Water Over Fizzy Drinks Slashes Diabetes Risk
There is a simple way to avoid diabetes: choose purified water over sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks. Researchers from Harvard University have tied consumption of carbonated beverages such as soda to diabetes. The key is fructose consumption.
While pure fructose is naturally occurring in fruit, there are also a number of potent vitamins and nutrients that go along with it that allow for slow absorption (though too much fructose even from fruit is not good). Soda, on the other hand, is essentially liquid fructose — and oftentimes it contains high fructose corn syrup, which is a genetically modified form of fructose that contains mercury.
There are countless reasons to put away the soda and to choose water instead. Not only do fizzy drinks simply not quench your thirst like H2O, they can (and do) destroy your health. And researchers with Harvard University point out yet another reason to avoid the beverages—water can help you drop pounds when replacing fizzy soft drinks.
“There is convincing evidence that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with increased risk of obesity and diabetes, and emerging evidence that these beverages increase the risk for heart disease,” says Professor Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health.
Professor Hu and his colleagues suggest that reducing the consumption of sugary drinks can reduce the risk of such lifestyle diseases and help combat obesity as well. Duh.
Soda is just one of the many culprits contributing to the massive consumption of sugar in the United States. This sugar can lead to insulin-resistance, which is a predictor of Type-2 diabetes. And as the Daily Mail points out, diabetes can raise your risk of heart disease by up to five times.
So, if you have weight to lose, want to avoid diabetes and heart disease, and would like to take one small step towards better health—ditch the soda.
But don’t make the mistake of abandoning regular soft drinks only to switch to drinking diet sodas. But why, is diet soda bad for you? All sodas are bad for you and this includes those that tout calorie and sugar-free labels. As a matter of fact, some of the ingredients used in diet sodas could be just as damaging as the sugar and high fructose corn syrup in the regular ones. Most recently diet soda consumption has been linked to depression and kidney function decline.
Instead of reaching for a can of soda or a diet drink, try unsweetened iced tea or a simple glass of water. If you crave something a little more flavorful—add fruit! Fruit-infused waters are a breeze to make and won’t hurt your waistline or damage your life-expectancy.
Additional Sources:
It goes without saying that plain old purified water is a lot safer than any fizzy drink. For one, H2O doesn't have all the sugars and other ingredients that can make you sick if ingested in large enough amounts.
As they say, water is the tonic for good health. People who are very much indulgent to carbonated drinks are addicted to the sugar content of those drinks.
Just be sure the water is clean though. You don't really want to avoid one disease just to catch another, do you?
Fizzy drinks are all bad for me. Water is the safest way to quench our thirst.
Water is calorie free. you can have as much as you want..