Have you ever wondered what happens to your body after you drink a can of your favourite fizzy drink? A
new infographic has revealed the reaction you go through for an hour
after consuming, from the first sip, right through to 60 minutes after
finishing.
The graphic was compiled by The Renegade Pharmacist, a blog run by former UK pharmacist Niraj Naik and includes a seven-stop breakdown.
He reveals:
In The First 10 minutes: 10
teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100 per cent of your recommended
daily intake.) You don't immediately vomit from the overwhelming
sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavour allowing you to keep
it down.
20 minutes: Your
blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to
this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There's
plenty of that at this particular moment).
40 minutes: Caffeine
absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises,
as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The
adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
45 minutes: Your
body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centres of
your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism.
This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
60 Minutes: The caffeine's diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.)
It
is now assured that you'll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and
zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and
water.
Further: As the rave inside of you dies down you'll start to have a sugar crash.
You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You've also now, literally, urinated the water that was in the Coke.
But
not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have
used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or
build strong bones and teeth.
In the first 10 minutes 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your body, causing an insulin burst as your blood sugar spikes
Mr
Naik told FEMAIL: 'When I worked as a community pharmacist I had some
great success at helping people get off long term medication. Especially
blood pressure medication, statins and diabetic medication.
'Many
of them [patients] would consume fizzy drinks on a daily basis. A few
on several medications would consume two to three cans a day. In one
case a guy was on every heart drug under the sun and taking big doses.
'So
I created my own system to help my patients where I would write little
shopping lists for people based on their conditions. My first advice to
them would be to do a simple swap, replacing fizzy drinks with water
with fresh lemon or lime juice.
'In
many cases just doing this would have a dramatic effect on their
health. So this indicated to me that fizzy drinks and sugar were big
issues relating to blood pressure and metabolic diseases like diabetes
and heart disease.
'Then I did a lot more research and discovered that there were other scientists and doctors who backed up my claims.
'The BBC TV documentary called The Men Who Made Us Fat is especially good and gives all the evidence to back up my claims.
'I
also did a presentation all about cholesterol and statins that is one
of the most viewed on YouTube on this subject and gives all the evidence
for sugar being one of the main causes of heart disease, rather than
saturated fat and high cholesterol which we have all been led to
believe.
'Its
actually the bad manufactured fats in processed foods and refined sugar
that you really need to worry about, not the good healthy fats you
would find in eggs, free range meats and foods like avocados.'
Ella Allred,
Technical Nutritionist at NutriCentre.com told FEMAIL: 'These facts on
Coke, may shock you, but it is a good indication as to why we shouldn't
be drinking it.
'The NHS has just changed the total added sugar allowance from 10 teaspoons per day to 7.5 teaspoons per day.
'This makes just one can more than your total free sugar allowance for the entire day.
'Such
a high surge of sugar causes your pancreas to over work to produce
insulin, increasing your chances of developing Diabetes Type 2 and
causing you to lay down fat around the middle, which increases your
chances of developing heart disease.
'The caffeine hit from the coke silences certain receptors in the brain making you feel alert and awake.
'We
don't feel tired in the first place due to caffeine deficiency, so it
just masks the symptoms of another problem. Ignoring this problem isn't
going to get you anywhere!
'The
huge sugar hit that your body now needs to deal with uses up valuables
nutrient stores such as magnesium and calcium, our biggest stores being
in our bones - just think about that for a second.'
'It also causes you to become dehydrated, making you feel drowsy and tired, again needing another energy hit.
'The sugar
and caffeine stimulate the same pleasure centres in our brain as drugs
such as cocaine and heroin, leaving you craving more, which further
worsens the effect on your body.
A Coca-Cola spokesperson told FEMAIL: 'People have enjoyed drinking a Coca-Cola for more than 129 years.
'Like all soft drinks, it is perfectly safe to drink and can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet and lifestyle.
'We
provide a choice of colas to meet the needs of different consumers,
including options that are lower sugar, sugar free and caffeine free.'
Adults
should restrict the amount of sugar in their diet to just seven cubes,
left - half what is currently recommended, experts today advise. The new
recommendations mean one can of Coke, right, would take a person over
their daily limit of 30g of sugar for adults, with 35g of sugar per can
It comes after it was advised that adults should restrict the amount of sugar in their diet to just seven teaspoons or cubes.
The
Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) said the move, which
will mean a can of Coke is more than a person's daily sugar allowance,
to combat spiralling obesity levels and stem the diabetes crisis.
Furthermore,
reducing sugar intake for children will help lower the risk of tooth
decay - the primary reason for children being admitted to hospital.
The advice considers free sugars, those which are added to food.
They include sucrose or table sugar, glucose and those naturally present in honey, syrups and unsweetened fruit juices.
U.S.
President Donald Trump announces his decision regarding the United
States’ participation in the Paris climate agreement in the Rose Garden
at the White House June 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. Trump pledged on the
campaign trail to withdraw from the accord, which former President
Barack Obama and the leaders of 194 other countries signed in 2015. The
agreement is intended to encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions in an effort to limit global warming to a manageable level.
