There are many benefits and advantages to keeping a flexible body, but there can also be risks related to stretching. Many different doctors, physiotherapists and trainers have also changed their opinions on stretching over the years. I have done some research on the matter that I can share with you below. Please note that if you have any further questions regarding stretching or stretching an injury, etc. please seek medical advice as the information I have below is based on recreational use only!
Stretching Before a Workout
There is no doubt that there are a wide range of opinions and ideas surrounding the topic of pre-workout stretching. Some athletes swear by the idea of a full warm-up with a good stretch session before every workout, and then there are bodybuilders and trainers who believe that no matter what type of exercise you are performing, you receive enough stretching while completing an exercise itself.
For example, if I was to be working out my legs with some squats or leg presses, the actual motions carried forth while completing a squat is actually stretching the muscle as I work it.
A study was completed by David A. Lally, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. He studied marathon runners and the effects pre-workout stretching had on their bodies. I am sure you could google his full study, but for this blog, I will summarize his results. He actually found that for the most part stretching had little to no effect on preventing injury before a marathon for his test subjects. In fact, Caucasian males actually had a greater risk of injury if they stretched pre-run. He concluded that there were no benefits to stretching before a workout.
My own personal opinion on the matter is that I feel much better beginning a workout, whether it be cardio training or resistance training, after I have completed at least a 5-10 min. warm-up consisting of mild cardio, and then some static and ballistic stretching.
Static stretching is stretching a muscle in a held position. This is the type of stretching most people think of when they hear 'stretching'. As example of a static stretch would be a hamstring forward-bend stretch where you are reaching to touch your toes, held for 15-20 seconds.
Ballistic stretching is stretching with movement. Whether it be jogging while kicking yourself in the butt (stretching the thighs) or swinging your arms open and closed to hug yourself (stretching chest and back).
Once I have completed some light warm-up and a bit of a stretch, my muscles are more open for blood flow and slightly warm to head into exercise. Also try exercise-specific ballistic stretching to prepare. For example, if you are going to be playing soccer, you may want to do some walking lunges or deep prayer squats. This creates a much more efficient warm-up and stretch of those leg muscles to prepare for the desired activity.
Stretching During a Workout
A coworker of mine mentioned to me at how he was doing leg presses at the gym, where he had completed a few sets, and went back for one more set and felt that his hamstring had been pulled. But the weird thing was, it was as though he had pulled it while getting back into position for the movement rather than the movement itself. I told him I felt as though he may have left too much time in between sets and allowed his muscles to get tight and cold.
It is of best interest to keep your body active and warm even in between sets of resistance, or between sets if you are completing an interval-style cardio workout. There are many advantages to keeping your body moving and doing mild ballistic stretching in between sets.
Circuit training is so efficient for this as you may do some bicep curls, then go and do tricep presses, then a leg press, then back to the bicep curls. While following a circuit style of training, you are able to stay warm in between sets on a specific muscle group, but are able to workout different muscle groups while resting the one(s) you just blasted.
Keeping your heart rate up with mild ballistic stretching in between sets allows you heart rate to stay up at a decent level, keeping your body and muscles warm so that your muscles stay flexible preventing injury. One major bonus to between-set ballistic stretching is that your blood can then clean up and carry away all of that lactic acid bath buildup in your muscles and allows you to be rested and ready to hit another set with intensity!
Stretching After a Workout
I would say that stretching after a workout is far more beneficial than stretching before. You want to begin your cool down with some ballistic stretching, however, so that you can start to bring your heart rate down. Ballistic stretching is great in this regard as you are able to keep moving at a reduced pace to your workout, yet stretching at the same time. Once your heart rate has come down to a reasonable level, you can begin to really focus on some stretching of your main muscle groups with some static stretching like toe touches, etc. Do not hold static stretches for too long however, as you want to try and stretch your whole body while your blood is still pumping at a decent level to clean away all of that lactic acid buildup.
After a workout, muscles are often fairly tight - and in some cases are even close to going into a spasm - after a very strenuous workout ends. At that point, stretching is a fine way to transform a hypercontracted muscle into a relaxed collection of fibres which can comfortably adapt to the more passive activities which follow a training session.
Stretching as a Workout
Now we have already discussed at how stretching should be completed before and after cardio and resistance workouts, but what about a nice long stretch as a workout!
Yoga is a great example of this. With yoga, you are able to get the body really warm and active while maintaining good form and stretching all of those muscles, ligaments and connective tissues, strengthening yet stretching at the same time to increase blood flow.
A full-body stretch is great to complete at least once a week, especially if you are working the rest of your body so strenuously. This allows your body to really open up and increase blood flow to all muscle groups to allow them to repair and rebuild.
Here are a list of benefits from regular stretching:
Increased flexibility and better range of motion of your joints - Flexible muscles can improve your daily performance. Tasks such as lifting packages, bending to tie your shoes or hurrying to catch a bus become easier and less tiring. Flexibility tends to diminish as you get older, but you can regain and maintain it.
Improved circulation - Stretching increases blood flow to your muscles. Blood flowing to your muscles brings nourishment and gets rid of waste byproducts in the muscle tissue. Improved circulation can help shorten your recovery time if you've had any muscle injuries.
Better posture - Frequent stretching can help keep your muscles from getting tight, allowing you to maintain proper posture. Good posture can minimize discomfort and keep aches and pains at a minimum.
Stress relief - Stretching relaxes tight, tense muscles that often accompany stress.
Better Balance - Maintaining the full range of motion through your joints keeps you in better balance. Coordination and balance will help keep you mobile and less prone to injury from falls, especially as you get older.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
STAY in Shape!
Simple enough title right?
Those of you that know me well know that I am a big fan of the New York Yankees. I am therefore a HUGE Derek Jeter fan.
There was an article in Sports Illustrated a few years back that let the reader in on Jeter's personal life a little bit. One key factor that the interviewer touched on was Derek's fitness regime.
Derek said that when he was younger, and broke into the league, he stayed in shape all season long and then took a few months off. But now that he is getting older, he finds it is much easier to 'stay in shape' rather than 'get in shape'.
He said that after the baseball season completes, he likes to take a little bit of time off, but then gets right back into the swing of things (ha!) and works out hard in the offseason.
Although Derek is a professional athlete, this same mentality can and should be followed by those fitness-minded individuals. A lot of times, people start a workout program and then a few things happen;
1) They experience a lot of pain via sore muscles and exhaustion, so they give up on their workout plan shortly after beginning because things are 'too hard'.
2) They continue to fight through the pain, complete a few months of exercise, then go back to their sedentary lifestyles. This is fine, but 6, 8, 12 months down the road when they feel like getting back into a routine, they experience that same pain and exhaustion they had at the beginning of their last round...rinse and repeat.
The most ideal scenario here would be to dedicate yourself to lifelong fitness so that you are continually growing and making yourself stronger, faster, healthier.
Think of fitness as climbing a descending escalator. Scenario 1 above would be somebody starting at stair 1 and climbing up a stair at a time. Since they are out of shape, each stair is quite difficult, in fact, many people try to tackle 2 stairs at a time for 'faster' results, and end up discouraging themselves, quitting, and having the escalator carry them back down to ground level.
Scenario 2 would be an individual starting on stair 1, and taking things 1 stair at a time for a few weeks/months, then when they feel they have reached a 'high enough' level, they let their bodies travel back down to the ground floor. Then, weeks, months, or years later when they decide they wish to exercise again, they have to start all over from stair 1.
Wouldn't you rather take a stair at a time, every day, getting yourself into a routine, so that as you age and grow older, the stairs actually become easy, then you find yourself taking 2 stairs at a time, or 3 or even 4!
Now there are going to be a few days here and there that you are busy, or have a cold/flu/some other illness side tracking you. But if you minimize the amount of time you take off, then you can keep a steady pace and never have to travel back down to the ground level.
Those of you that know me well know that I am a big fan of the New York Yankees. I am therefore a HUGE Derek Jeter fan.
There was an article in Sports Illustrated a few years back that let the reader in on Jeter's personal life a little bit. One key factor that the interviewer touched on was Derek's fitness regime.
Derek said that when he was younger, and broke into the league, he stayed in shape all season long and then took a few months off. But now that he is getting older, he finds it is much easier to 'stay in shape' rather than 'get in shape'.
He said that after the baseball season completes, he likes to take a little bit of time off, but then gets right back into the swing of things (ha!) and works out hard in the offseason.
Although Derek is a professional athlete, this same mentality can and should be followed by those fitness-minded individuals. A lot of times, people start a workout program and then a few things happen;
1) They experience a lot of pain via sore muscles and exhaustion, so they give up on their workout plan shortly after beginning because things are 'too hard'.
2) They continue to fight through the pain, complete a few months of exercise, then go back to their sedentary lifestyles. This is fine, but 6, 8, 12 months down the road when they feel like getting back into a routine, they experience that same pain and exhaustion they had at the beginning of their last round...rinse and repeat.
The most ideal scenario here would be to dedicate yourself to lifelong fitness so that you are continually growing and making yourself stronger, faster, healthier.
Think of fitness as climbing a descending escalator. Scenario 1 above would be somebody starting at stair 1 and climbing up a stair at a time. Since they are out of shape, each stair is quite difficult, in fact, many people try to tackle 2 stairs at a time for 'faster' results, and end up discouraging themselves, quitting, and having the escalator carry them back down to ground level.
Scenario 2 would be an individual starting on stair 1, and taking things 1 stair at a time for a few weeks/months, then when they feel they have reached a 'high enough' level, they let their bodies travel back down to the ground floor. Then, weeks, months, or years later when they decide they wish to exercise again, they have to start all over from stair 1.
Wouldn't you rather take a stair at a time, every day, getting yourself into a routine, so that as you age and grow older, the stairs actually become easy, then you find yourself taking 2 stairs at a time, or 3 or even 4!
Now there are going to be a few days here and there that you are busy, or have a cold/flu/some other illness side tracking you. But if you minimize the amount of time you take off, then you can keep a steady pace and never have to travel back down to the ground level.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
10 Reasons to Give up Soda
This is an article I read a little while ago by a man named Steve Edwards. Steve is a mountain climber and health enthusiast. He makes some valid points in his article below!
Well, here it is ladies and gents. A cumulative (albeit short) list on why you should stop drinking soda (pop). There are some great points to be made in this list, and many more that are not on this list. Either way, a serious read through this should entice you to give up the drink. And beware, don't think Diet Soda drinkers are any better off, read the whole list and you will see why.
Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Soda
By Steve Edwards
If you're looking for a scapegoat in the obesity epidemic, look no further than soda. It's the single greatest caloric source in the world, accounting for somewhere between 11 and 19 percent of all the calories consumed worldwide. It's cheap, addictive, and readily available, which generally means that it will take some willpower to avoid. We present: our top 10 reasons to give up soda. Drumroll please . . .
10. Soda may cause cancer. According to a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, consuming two or more soft drinks per week increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks. As reported, the study "followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not."
Then why, you're probably asking yourself, is this number ten on our list and why is soda even still on the shelf? Not that I'd challenge the ability of such large corporate power to hide such a thing but, in this case, the study slit its own throat. As one of the researchers noted, "soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for," meaning that we have no way of knowing, for sure, if soda was the culprit. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that when you drink soda it lumps you into a fairly unhealthy user group.1
9. It's not just about calories. Calories grab headlines, but recent science is showing that diet soda users are still in the crosshairs. A 2005 study by the University of Texas Health Science Center showed that there's a 41 percent increased risk of being obese—and a 65 percent increased risk of becoming overweight during the next 7 or 8 years—for every can of diet soda a person consumes in a day. Admittedly, this one should be higher on the list, but I wanted to make sure the article-skimming crowd knew the score up front: that diet sodas are very much a part of the problem.
8. It's the water . . . and a lot more. Okay, so that was a beer slogan, but soda is also made up mainly of water, and when you're slinging as much of it as they are, and you need to sling it cheap, sometimes you can't help but run into problems with your supply chain. In India, Coca-Cola® has found itself in hot water, and not the kind they thought they were purchasing rights to. Two of their factories have been closed, but one continues to run amok. According to a report in The Ecologist, "They accuse the company of over-extracting groundwater, lowering the water tables and leaving farmers and the local community unable to dig deep enough to get to vital water supplies."
"Since the bottling plant was opened in 2000, water levels in the area have dropped six metres, and when a severe drought hit the region earlier this year the crops failed and livelihoods were destroyed."2
7. BPA: not just for water bottles anymore. Nalgene® and other water bottle companies took the heat when the dangers of bisphenol A (BPA) were made public a couple years back. While these companies went to great lengths to save their businesses, the soda companies somehow flew under the radar and continue to use it in their products. A recent Canadian study has found that BPA exists "in the vast majority" of the soft drinks tested. Most of these were under the national limits set for toxicity, but some were not. And remember how much soda the average person consumes, meaning odds are most soda consumers are at some risk.
"Out of 72 drinks tested, 69 were found to contain BPA at levels below what Health Canada says is the safe upper limit. However, studies in peer-reviewed science journals have indicated that even at very low doses, BPA can increase breast and ovarian cancer cell growth and the growth of some prostate cancer cells in animals."3
6. Can convenience. As in the 1950s colloquial: can it. Speaking of the 1950s, those were the happy days when most of our soda was consumed at soda fountains, obesity was a term hardly anyone had heard of, and the most feared epidemic was one of atomically mutated insects taking over the world. Now instead of hoofing it down to the corner confectionery for one soda, we fill out trucks with pallets of shrink-wrapped cans or bottles and quaff the stuff by the six-pack. Not to mention how out of balance this ensures our diets will become, it wreaks havoc on the world around us. The bottled-water industry (which is mostly owned by the soda industry) famously uses 17 million barrels of oil a year, and the aluminum industry uses as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa. Not only that, aluminum mining accounts for a ton of toxic chemicals that is left behind for every ton of the metal produced.4
5. Frankenfood factor. Whether you consume diet or regular soda, you're getting all of the genetically modified food you need and more, via high fructose corn syrup or aspartame. Both of these are under plenty of scientific as well as anecdotal scrutiny. Findings aren't pretty but, so far, this multibillion-dollar industry has kept these sweeteners on the shelves while alternative sweeteners meeting cost requirements are explored. Since it's almost impossible to read health headlines without finding one of these ingredients in some type of controversy, I'll just use one example:
"The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety advocacy group, called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review the claims, which stem from research conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy.
The foundation reported that rats who consumed aspartame in exceedingly large quantities were more likely to develop cancer. CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson considers this an important finding that should not be overlooked." 5
I know, there I go again with the cancer. But some people need to be shocked in order to take action. For me, seeing the Diet Coke® and Mentos® experiment was all I needed to swear off the stuff.
4. Foreign news cares how much soda we sell in our schools. How bad is your country's problem when the whole world is watching its daily actions? "Nearly one in three children and teenagers in the U.S. are overweight or obese and health experts say sugary drinks are part of the problem." Yep, bad. The world is well aware of the problems soda is causing and is looking to us to lead. And we certainly are trying. Are you with the program?
"Under the voluntary guidelines, in place since 2006, full-calorie soft drinks were removed from school canteens and vending machines. Lighter drinks, including low-fat milk, diet sodas, juices, flavoured waters and teas were promoted in their place."6
And, while great and all, it appears that no one got the memo about diet sodas.
3. Diet? Um, that's just like your opinion, man. When it comes to soda, treat the word "diet" as a slogan. A study at Boston University's School of Medicine linked diet soda with increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. To be more specific, the study "found adults who drink one or more sodas a day had about a 50 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome," which is a cluster of risk factors such as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of "good" cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other symptoms that lead to heart disease and/or diabetes. And, for those of you only concerned about how you look in the mirror, "Those who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese."
2. Soda outkills terrorists. A study out of the University of California, San Francisco, shows that soda has killed at least 6,000 Americans in the last decade.
From ABC News: "The new analysis, presented Friday at the American Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, offers a picture of just how horrifying the damage done by excess consumption of sugary drinks can be.
Using a computer model and data from the Framingham Heart Study, the Nurses Health Study and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers estimated that the escalating consumption between 1990 and 2000 of soda and sugar-sweetened beverages, which they abbreviated as 'SSBs,' led to 75,000 new cases of diabetes and 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease.
What's more, the burden of the diseases translated into a $300 million to $550 million increase in health care costs between 2000 and 2010."7
1. It's the "real thing" . . . not exactly. Should having the number one caloric source in the world come from something that's entirely manmade be a metaphor for a dying world? It doesn't have to be this way. After all, there's nothing in soda that we need. In fact, there's nothing in soda that even comes from the earth except caffeine, and that's optional. It's a mixture of altered water (injected with carbon dioxide gas), artificial flavors (yes, "natural flavor" is artificial), artificial color, and phosphoric acid, along with its sole caloric source that is a by-product of genetically modified corn production and offers virtually no nutritional value. It's about as real as The Thing.
1. Sources:
2. 1 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/aafc-sdc020310.php
3. 2 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/373906/cocacola_just_part_of_indias_water_freeforall.html
4. 3 http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/03/05/popcans.html
5. 4 http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html, http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/eco/eech6_ss3
6. 5 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3317079&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
7. 6 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8557195.stm
8. 7 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/study-sugary-drinks-lead-early-grave/story?id=10019518
Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Soda
By Steve Edwards
If you're looking for a scapegoat in the obesity epidemic, look no further than soda. It's the single greatest caloric source in the world, accounting for somewhere between 11 and 19 percent of all the calories consumed worldwide. It's cheap, addictive, and readily available, which generally means that it will take some willpower to avoid. We present: our top 10 reasons to give up soda. Drumroll please . . .
10. Soda may cause cancer. According to a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, consuming two or more soft drinks per week increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks. As reported, the study "followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not."
Then why, you're probably asking yourself, is this number ten on our list and why is soda even still on the shelf? Not that I'd challenge the ability of such large corporate power to hide such a thing but, in this case, the study slit its own throat. As one of the researchers noted, "soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for," meaning that we have no way of knowing, for sure, if soda was the culprit. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that when you drink soda it lumps you into a fairly unhealthy user group.1
9. It's not just about calories. Calories grab headlines, but recent science is showing that diet soda users are still in the crosshairs. A 2005 study by the University of Texas Health Science Center showed that there's a 41 percent increased risk of being obese—and a 65 percent increased risk of becoming overweight during the next 7 or 8 years—for every can of diet soda a person consumes in a day. Admittedly, this one should be higher on the list, but I wanted to make sure the article-skimming crowd knew the score up front: that diet sodas are very much a part of the problem.
8. It's the water . . . and a lot more. Okay, so that was a beer slogan, but soda is also made up mainly of water, and when you're slinging as much of it as they are, and you need to sling it cheap, sometimes you can't help but run into problems with your supply chain. In India, Coca-Cola® has found itself in hot water, and not the kind they thought they were purchasing rights to. Two of their factories have been closed, but one continues to run amok. According to a report in The Ecologist, "They accuse the company of over-extracting groundwater, lowering the water tables and leaving farmers and the local community unable to dig deep enough to get to vital water supplies."
"Since the bottling plant was opened in 2000, water levels in the area have dropped six metres, and when a severe drought hit the region earlier this year the crops failed and livelihoods were destroyed."2
7. BPA: not just for water bottles anymore. Nalgene® and other water bottle companies took the heat when the dangers of bisphenol A (BPA) were made public a couple years back. While these companies went to great lengths to save their businesses, the soda companies somehow flew under the radar and continue to use it in their products. A recent Canadian study has found that BPA exists "in the vast majority" of the soft drinks tested. Most of these were under the national limits set for toxicity, but some were not. And remember how much soda the average person consumes, meaning odds are most soda consumers are at some risk.
"Out of 72 drinks tested, 69 were found to contain BPA at levels below what Health Canada says is the safe upper limit. However, studies in peer-reviewed science journals have indicated that even at very low doses, BPA can increase breast and ovarian cancer cell growth and the growth of some prostate cancer cells in animals."3
6. Can convenience. As in the 1950s colloquial: can it. Speaking of the 1950s, those were the happy days when most of our soda was consumed at soda fountains, obesity was a term hardly anyone had heard of, and the most feared epidemic was one of atomically mutated insects taking over the world. Now instead of hoofing it down to the corner confectionery for one soda, we fill out trucks with pallets of shrink-wrapped cans or bottles and quaff the stuff by the six-pack. Not to mention how out of balance this ensures our diets will become, it wreaks havoc on the world around us. The bottled-water industry (which is mostly owned by the soda industry) famously uses 17 million barrels of oil a year, and the aluminum industry uses as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa. Not only that, aluminum mining accounts for a ton of toxic chemicals that is left behind for every ton of the metal produced.4
5. Frankenfood factor. Whether you consume diet or regular soda, you're getting all of the genetically modified food you need and more, via high fructose corn syrup or aspartame. Both of these are under plenty of scientific as well as anecdotal scrutiny. Findings aren't pretty but, so far, this multibillion-dollar industry has kept these sweeteners on the shelves while alternative sweeteners meeting cost requirements are explored. Since it's almost impossible to read health headlines without finding one of these ingredients in some type of controversy, I'll just use one example:
"The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety advocacy group, called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review the claims, which stem from research conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy.
The foundation reported that rats who consumed aspartame in exceedingly large quantities were more likely to develop cancer. CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson considers this an important finding that should not be overlooked." 5
I know, there I go again with the cancer. But some people need to be shocked in order to take action. For me, seeing the Diet Coke® and Mentos® experiment was all I needed to swear off the stuff.
4. Foreign news cares how much soda we sell in our schools. How bad is your country's problem when the whole world is watching its daily actions? "Nearly one in three children and teenagers in the U.S. are overweight or obese and health experts say sugary drinks are part of the problem." Yep, bad. The world is well aware of the problems soda is causing and is looking to us to lead. And we certainly are trying. Are you with the program?
"Under the voluntary guidelines, in place since 2006, full-calorie soft drinks were removed from school canteens and vending machines. Lighter drinks, including low-fat milk, diet sodas, juices, flavoured waters and teas were promoted in their place."6
And, while great and all, it appears that no one got the memo about diet sodas.
3. Diet? Um, that's just like your opinion, man. When it comes to soda, treat the word "diet" as a slogan. A study at Boston University's School of Medicine linked diet soda with increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. To be more specific, the study "found adults who drink one or more sodas a day had about a 50 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome," which is a cluster of risk factors such as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of "good" cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other symptoms that lead to heart disease and/or diabetes. And, for those of you only concerned about how you look in the mirror, "Those who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese."
2. Soda outkills terrorists. A study out of the University of California, San Francisco, shows that soda has killed at least 6,000 Americans in the last decade.
From ABC News: "The new analysis, presented Friday at the American Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, offers a picture of just how horrifying the damage done by excess consumption of sugary drinks can be.
Using a computer model and data from the Framingham Heart Study, the Nurses Health Study and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers estimated that the escalating consumption between 1990 and 2000 of soda and sugar-sweetened beverages, which they abbreviated as 'SSBs,' led to 75,000 new cases of diabetes and 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease.
What's more, the burden of the diseases translated into a $300 million to $550 million increase in health care costs between 2000 and 2010."7
1. It's the "real thing" . . . not exactly. Should having the number one caloric source in the world come from something that's entirely manmade be a metaphor for a dying world? It doesn't have to be this way. After all, there's nothing in soda that we need. In fact, there's nothing in soda that even comes from the earth except caffeine, and that's optional. It's a mixture of altered water (injected with carbon dioxide gas), artificial flavors (yes, "natural flavor" is artificial), artificial color, and phosphoric acid, along with its sole caloric source that is a by-product of genetically modified corn production and offers virtually no nutritional value. It's about as real as The Thing.
1. Sources:
2. 1 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/aafc-sdc020310.php
3. 2 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/373906/cocacola_just_part_of_indias_water_freeforall.html
4. 3 http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/03/05/popcans.html
5. 4 http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html, http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/eco/eech6_ss3
6. 5 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3317079&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
7. 6 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8557195.stm
8. 7 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/study-sugary-drinks-lead-early-grave/story?id=10019518
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