What happens if you drink soft drinks instead of water?
Drinking only soda may seem like you're keeping yourself from dehydrating, but sadly, Coke and Pepsi may cool you down on a hot day, but they aren't going to give your body the water it needs, and it's all thanks to caffeine. Caffeine is a natural diuretic, and it works to make your body get rid of fluid through urine.
Hundreds of millions of people enjoy drinking a Coke or Pepsi every day, but have you ever stopped to think what might happen to your body if you stopped drinking all other liquids, and only drank soda?
It's well-known that these beverages contain a ton of sugar, and aren't all that healthy, but what would happen to your body if it's all you drank? Usually, these sorts of questions are answerable only by diving into the various factors of body chemistry, the soda's composition, and how our bodies react to such a thing, but in this case, there are real-world examples to learn from.
1. You Will Shorten Your Life
Drinking nothing but Coke or Pepsi for the rest of your life might mean that you're going to have less time to enjoy those sodas than you would otherwise have. It turns out, soda can shorten our lives, and the effects build up over time.
We age because our chromosomes have something called telomeres at the ends, and over time, as the cells replicate, the telomeres get smaller and smaller. Once they are all used up, our cells can no longer replicate, and we die of old age. It happens to everyone, but that doesn't mean you should speed the process up if you don't have to.
2. OK, But What About Sugar-Free Coke Or Pepsi?
The adverse health aspects of consuming massive amounts of sugar are relatively well known these days, which is why there are options to consume sugar-free Coke and Pepsi. There are also diet versions of these drinks, and all manner of zero-calorie options, so what would happen if someone only drank those?
A study conducted at Yale University found that people who drink a lot of sodas often consume more calories. This is due to their failure to account for the calories of the sodas they are drinking while only concerning themselves with the food they eat.
Switching to sugar-free options doesn't help for an interesting reason. The taste of something sweet, whether it's natural or artificial, serves to enhance our appetite. As a result, a person will drink a diet Coke or Pepsi but go for the large side of french fries or onion rings because they think their diet drink is healthier.
This leads to the consumption of more calories than a person needs, and while they might not be getting it from the soda, they will make it up with their food. That's not to say, switching to diet versions of either drink won't help in a normal diet. But a person would need to remain aware of everything they consume to remain healthy.
3. Expect A Widespread Decline In Your Health
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Sometimes, people drink nothing but soda as an experiment, and others do it as a lifestyle. One 31-year-old woman from Monaco found her way to the local hospital with severe heart arrhythmia accompanied by fainting spells. When they examined her, the doctors found that her potassium levels were dangerously low.
This was despite the fact that her family had no history of heart problems, but after the health care worker got her history, they quickly identified the problem. She had consumed nothing but cola for the past 16 years and had not let a drop of water pass her lips in that time.
4. Drinking Soda Instead Of Water Will Trick Your Brain Into Wanting More
Sodas are high in sugar, and that's one of the biggest problems your body will have in consuming it, but not necessarily in the way you might think. These days, we enjoy sugar and sweetened foods pretty much whenever we want, but for hundreds of thousands of years, that wasn't the case.
We evolved in such a way that our brain recognizes the addition of sugar by activating our reward system. Basically, our brain knows on a primal level that energy-rich sugary foods will help us out if we need that energy, so it pings our rewards system by giving us a rush of dopamine. This essentially tells our bodies to keep shoving sugar down our throats
When you drink a Coke or Pepsi, it contains sugar, but not the type of sugar most people picture. It's not the granulated white stuff we use when baking; they use something called High-Fructose Corn Syrup, and in many ways, it's much worse for our bodies to process than natural sugars due to its higher concentration of fructose.
This form of sweetener passes through your liver, which is the only organ in our bodies that can break down and metabolize fructose. If it takes too much in, it converts the fructose into fat, which is stored in the body. The real concern comes when that fat gets lodged in the liver itself, leading to a fatty liver.
6. You'll Pack On A Lot Of Weight... A LOT Of Weight
One of the biggest issues with consuming large quantities of sugary drinks are the calories contained within. Soda is often referred to as "empty calories" because your body takes them in without any accompanying nutrition your body needs.
One can of Coke contains 140 calories while Pepsi contains 150, and depending on your diet, you may not need those calories to function, which means you're going to store that energy in a convenient fat cell. That's essentially how we gain weight; we consume more energy than we use, and our body stores it for a rainy day.
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7. Drinking More Will Only Serve To Dehydrate You More
There's a part of our brain that inaccurately equates drinking liquids of all kinds with battling dehydration, but that's not really how our bodies work. We require a constant intake of water to survive, and without it, we dehydrate and die within a period of about three days.
Drinking only soda may seem like you're keeping yourself from dehydrating, but sadly, Coke and Pepsi may cool you down on a hot day, but they aren't going to give your body the water it needs, and it's all thanks to caffeine. Caffeine is a natural diuretic, and it works to make your body get rid of fluid through urine.
8. Your Teeth Will Rot
Sugar isn't good for our bodies in a number of ways, but the one way we can see the impact almost right away is by looking at our teeth. Sugary drinks may slide down your throat when you drink them, but they first coat your teeth, gums, and tongue, and remain there for hours after your first drink of the sweet stuff.
When that sugar sits on your teeth, it interacts with the bacteria that normally lies within plaque to produce acid. This occurs when the bacteria use the sugar to produce energy, and the released acid is essentially their waste product. Teeth and acid don't mix, and it serves to dissolve the enamel coating your teeth. Once this happens, your teeth begin to rot, leading to cavities, and tooth decay, which could require a root canal or extraction.
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