What are the side effects of drinking Coca-Cola?

Answer
If you drink much of it, the phosphoric acid in many softdrinks can cause severe calcium deficiency, resulting in bone loss and/or muscle cramping and other problems that are caused by electrolyte imbalance. Of course, too much sugar can result in diabetic or hypoglycemic complications and obesity. Most other problems associated with softdrinks seem to be little more than urban legend.

I had originally done research and prepared this paper on colas for a local community welfare organization for raising awareness on the health-effects of cola consumption. While going through some old floppies, I chanced upon it again and thought I should share it here.

The original paper had usual information about the presence of sulphuric acid, carbonic acid, citric acid, caffeine and how these acids are powerful enough to dissolve tooth enamel, clean corrotion from car batteries etc, but since that aspect has already been covered extensively in other reviews, I have edited it out and focused primarily on one important ingredient of all colas, which I believe is much more dangerous of all and has strangely not got much attention.

Diet Coke uses lethal suger-substiture, aspartame. In fact, not just coca-cola but all major soft-drinks including Pepsi-cola (Diet Pepsi) use this substance. Infact I believe that even ordinary and not just the diet version of the colas use this substance secretly. (News report :OTTAWA, February 22, 2002 - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is warning consumers who suffer from phenylketonuria (PKU) disease not to consume Pepsi brand cola as described below since this product contains aspartame that is not declared on the label)

In order to understand the dangers of coke, it is neccassary to understand the side-effects of aspartame. Aspartame has 92 side-effects including blindness and death. When the temperature of Aspartame exceeds 86 degrees F the wood alcohol in aspartame
converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. (Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants.) Methanol toxicity is similar to multiple sclerosis, but with a difference; while multiple sclerosis doesn’t result in death, methanol toxicity can be fatal.

Aspartame which is also called as ‘nutraSweet’ is known to causes symptoms such fibromyalgia, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss.

Aspartame also changes the brain’s chemistry. It is the reason for severe seizures. This drug changes the dopamine level in the brain. This drug also causes birth defects.

Interestingly Aspartame was introduced in colas as suger substitute to make then less fatty. But this is a plain lie, since this drug surpresses seratonin and make us crave for Carbohydrates, which result in obesity.

The dangerous side-effects of cola consumption is seen more in developed countries like USA, where the per-capita consumption of soft-drinks is much higher than that in India. Consumption of Aspartame results in memory loss which is due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine found in aspartame are neurotoxic without the other amino acids found in protein. Thus it goes past the blood brain barrier and deteriorates the neurons of the brain. The phenylalanine, a neurotoxin because of its isolation from the other amino acids in protein, breaks down in DKP, a brain tumor agent.

As a result the cases of Alzheimer’s Disease have gone up alarmingly in United States, with even men and women of 30 years age being diagnosed with this disease.

The methanol in the aspartame converts to formaldehyde in the retina of the eye which can lead to blindness. Believe it or not,
Formaldehyde is grouped in the same class of drugs as cyanide and arsenic which as we all know are DEADLY POISONS! The formaldehyde stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Aspartame is especially deadly for DIABETES. Aspartame keeps the blood sugar level out of control, causing many patients to go into a coma.

Many people argue that all things in excess cause problems and as such if we consume soft drinks in moderation, there is not much reason to worry. But what we don’t realize is that these soft drinks are deliberately made addictive by use of caffeine. While caffeine in itself is not too dangerous, it is addictive in nature causing people to drink soft – drinks in excess.

Due to growing health awareness among the younger generation, we are able to resist the temptation of excessive consumption. But our children easily fall prey to their omnipresent advertisement campaigns and become addicts.

I can give personal example of one of my friends whose 7-year old daughter died of diabetes. Though I have no definite proof that she became diabatic due to cola consumption, I know for fact, that she was addicted to coca-cola and used to drink it almost everyday. Parents nowadays do not enough time for their children and in order to compensate for that try to satisfy every demand of their children without much thought.