Is There a Clear Choice for Healthy Soft Drinks? Part 1

The American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPA) recently reminded the American Medical Association (AMA) of the AMA Council on Foods and Nutrition's 1942 warning: "From the health point of view it is desirable especially to have restriction of such use of sugar as is represented by consumption of sweetened carbonated beverages and forms of candy which are of low nutritional value. The Council believes it would be in the interest of the public health for all practical means to be taken to limit consumption of sugar in any form in which it fails to be combined with significant proportions of other foods of high nutritive quality." There is no doubt that sugar-sweetened soft drinks can wreak havoc with our health, and we consume far more sodas than we used to. In the same 2005 document to the AMA, the ACPA asserted that American consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has increased about tenfold since 1942. They also stated, "Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are the largest single food source of calories in the American diet." Obesity, diabetes and other markers of metabolic syndrome, plus food cravings and rotting teeth have all been blamed on the sugars (including high-fructose corn syrup) found in sodas and soft drinks. Many consumers, in an effort to avoid such health issues, have turned to drinking diet sodas instead of sugared sodas. But is this really a healthier choice? Diet soft drinks became available a decade after the AMA first warned about sugar and sugar-sweetened sodas. Kirsch's Beverages, Inc. of Brooklyn, New York, was the first to produce a diet beverage available for sale to the public. They anticipated first-year sales of their No-Cal ginger ale to reach 100,000 cases in the first year. The customers readily embraced Kirsch's No-Cal ginger ale and the company responded by adding four more flavors. According to an article in the August 10, 1953, issue of Time magazine, more than 50 other companies quickly leaped at the opportunity to fulfill the needs and desires of this new niche market. The Time article reported that sales of diet soda catapulted from zero to 5,000,000 cases in one year. The timing was perfect. Half a century after the introduction of saccharin, the American public was familiar with using the chemical as a sugar substitute due to its availability and low cost while sugar was being rationed during World War II, and the newly health-conscious population was learning that excess calories cause excess weight. The population at large assumed that the no-calorie alternative would allow them to indulge in sodas without the consequences of excess sugar, and sales of diet beverages increased in the United States and around the globe. If caloric sugar was replaced with noncaloric artificial sweeteners, the public reasoned, the weight and health problems associated with soft drink consumption should disappear. This line of thinking has encouraged the increased consumption of diet sodas over the past half-century so much that their sales are now threatening to equal the sales of sugared soft drinks. The first dietetic, or "diet," soft drinks were sweetened with saccharin, which left an objectionable chemical or metallic aftertaste. Cyclamate was soon added to saccharin to create a more palatable beverage. But cyclamate was banned in the U.S. in 1969 when research studies with rats suggested that cyclamate use could increase the risk of bladder cancer in humans. (Although scientists later concluded that cyclamate was not a carcinogenic threat to humans, it has not been reapproved due to other concerns, including possible adverse effects on blood pressure, genetic damage and testicular atrophy.) The beverages were then sweetened with saccharin only. The diet soda industry was dealt another blow in the 1970s, when saccharin was also found to cause cancer in rats. Instead of banning the one remaining artificial sweetener, the U. S. Congress mandated that foods containing saccharin must bear the warning: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin, which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals." By 2000, however, the warning was no longer required, as the prevailing research indicated that the findings of saccharin-induced bladder cancer in rats was not likely to apply to humans. By: ALICE ABLER Source: www.vision.org