Soda - An All American Beverage

[Guest guest]

I received this from a friend and found it well worth passing on.

Melissa

 

 

 

 

Warning: Soft Drinks May Seriously Harm You

 

You may want to think twice before you sip another soft drink:

research reported in the UK's Independent newspaper says a common

preservative used in fizzy drinks can switch off essential parts of

DNA. The preservative may bring on premature aging and trigger

diseases associated with old age.

 

The problem preservative is sodium benzoate, commonly used for many

years by the $160 billion worldwide soft drink industry. Sodium

benzoate, derived from benzoic acid, prevents mold in drinks like

Coca-Cola, Oasis, Dr. Pepper, etc., and is also used in pickles and

sauces.

 

Alarm bells have already been ringing about it, because it's been

discovered that when it's mixed with vitamin C in soft drinks, it

creates the carcinogenic substance benzene. Now UK Professor Peter

Piper of Sheffield University has sounded an even louder alarm — his

experiments show that benzoate damages DNA in the energy-producing

mitochondria of cells.

 

" These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in

the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they

knock it out altogether, " Piper said. " The mitochondria consumes the

oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a

number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very

seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being

tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-

degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of aging. "

 

The World Health Organization, the Food Standards Agency in the UK,

and the US Food and Drug Administration all say that sodium benzoate

is safe. Professor Piper, however, says that FDA tests are out of

date.

 

" The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they

are completely safe, " Piper said. " By the criteria of modern safety

testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety

testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety

test than you could 50 years ago. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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