Study: Carbonated drinks have same cell ageing effects as cigarettes

MANILA, Philippines – Are you a heavy soft drinks drinker? You might want to cut off your habit once and for all.

Most people are aware of the disturbing side effects of soft drinks. Soft drinks have both been linked to obesity, kidney damage and elevated blood pressure. Another study has made the effects of this beverage even worse.

Soda and Cell Aging: Associations Between Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Healthy Adults From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, found out that soda may age your immune cells as much as puffing of cigarette.

The study concluded that a daily soda (carbonated) habit can age your immune cells almost two years after examining data from 5,309 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from about 14 years ago. They found that people who drank more sugary soda tended to have shorter telomeres.

Telomeres are caps that sit on the end of chromosomes in cells, which guard the end of chromosomes and the genetic code inside.

When cells divide, telomeres get shorter and shorter. Eventually, the cells stop dividing and die.  Shorter telomeres are linked to age-related illnesses such as heart disease and some cancers.

An 8-ounce daily serving of soda may give you 1.9 years of additional aging, while a daily 20-ounce serving may add up to 4.6 more years of aging.

Senior study author Elissa Epel, PhD, professor of psychiatry at University of California San Francisco and her team saw the effect only on the sugary, bubbly soda and not on non-carbonated sugary beverages, like fruit juice.

Although shortening of telomeres is inevitable as we age, Epel emphasized that previous studies have proven that we could delay these as much as 10 percent over 5 years by eating a healthy diet, meaning NO carbonated drinks included.