Bitter truth about the sweet stuff

Cold drinks help beat the heat but a majority of them,including sodas,fruit drinks,cordials,sherbets,squashes,fruit juices,pannas,thandai and iced teas are loaded with sugar.

Cold drinks help beat the heat but a majority of them,including sodas,fruit drinks,cordials,sherbets,squashes,fruit juices,pannas,thandai and iced teas are loaded with sugar. People are often unaware of the number of calories and amount of sugar in sugar-sweetened beverages. Did you know that a 550 ml bottle of cola has more than 15 teaspoons of sugar and 240 calories,which forms more than 10 per cent of our average daily caloric requirement (between 1,800 and 2,000 calories)?

A large school-based intervention in the US reported that greater consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with weight gain and obesity. Another study reported that high soft drink consumption increases risk of diabetes by nearly 83 per cent in women. Framingham Heart Study,a US-based cardiovascular disease research centre,found that those who drank one or more sodas per day were nearly 50 per cent more likely to develop metabolic syndrome (a combination of risk factors such as high waist circumference,high blood pressure,impaired fasting glucose or diabetes,that strongly predicts the likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease) than those who had one soda a week.

Though sweetened beverages provide significant calories,they do so without supplying essential nutrients. That way,they promote unhealthy weight gain and a compromised nutritional status. Substitution of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages for milk can lead to rise in calcium deficiency among children,who need to pack in maximum calcium to build a bone bank for later years.

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Drinks rich in free sugars increase overall calorie intake by reducing appetite control. There is thus no compensatory reduction of food intake after the consumption of high-sugar drinks. Studies show that a sugar-sweetened beverage had with or before a meal doesnt compensate for the extra calories in the beverage by reducing the appetite for other sources of calories in the same or subsequent meal.

Our body responds differently to energy provided by solid foods as opposed to energy from fluids. Possibly because of reduced gastric distention and faster transit times,the energy contained in fluids is less well-detected by the body and subsequent food intake is poorly adjusted to account for the energy taken in through beverages.

Since sugars are the most important dietary factors in the development of dental caries,drinking large amounts of diet soda (eight to 10 cans a day) is a cause of tooth erosion. It has been reported that among young children aged 1-5 years,consumption of sweetened,carbonated soft drinks was associated with 80-100 per cent increased risk of dental caries. In addition to sugar,most sodas contain phosphoric and citric acids. Both are harmful to enamel. The non-cola drinks contain flavour additives,malic acid,and other organic acids,which are more aggressive at eroding teeth than whats found in cola drinks.

Replacement of dietary (added) sugar by low-calorie sweeteners contributes to lower energy intake,weight reduction and improved weight maintenance.
Clearly,sufficient evidence exists for public health strategies to discourage consumption of sugary drinks as part of a healthy lifestyle. Sugar-sweetened beverages must be made expensive through further taxation. Reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages by 10 per cent would save about 7,400 calories per year and could reduce yearly weight gain by two pounds.