Central  South  Dakota  Medical News
The Clinical View
by Phillip Hoffsten
1 September 2004

THE PROBLEMS OF SUGAR-SWEETENED BEVERAGES

     As anyone who lives on planet Earth should know by now, there is a weight problem that is worldwide.  While some areas of the world have famine and starvation, most of the world has a glut of fast food and easily obtainable sugar-sweetened beverages.  Coca Cola is more than 100 years old and I can remember when a six-ounce Coke came in a little thick green glass bottle and cost a nickel.  My how things change!  Soon it was an 8-ounce bottle, and then a 10-ounce bottle and then a 12-ounce can and now it is a 20-ounce plastic bottle.  What used to be consumed at a break from work is now sitting on the desk in a 32-ounce mug to sip on while you work.  At about 12 calories per ounce, those 20-ounce plastic pop bottles are worth 240 calories apiece.  Using two or even three of these a day is not uncommon.  At 720 extra calories per day is it any wonder that there is a weight problem in the world.

     Our national committees and authorities on weight control continue to preach diet and exercise as the answer to our weight problem.  As a concept for dealing with the weight problem of the country, diet and exercise is likely to be as effective as charging purgatory with a bucket full of water.  It just is not going to work.

     When diet and exercise have not worked people have turned to diet pills and to invasive surgical procedures.  The invasive surgical procedures are effective but there just aren’t enough surgeons to do a procedure on everyone who would benefit from this surgery.

     Rather, the answer to our overweight problem in the United States and in the world has to be a societal solution whereby copious quantities of fast food and sugar-sweetened beverages are discouraged.

     In the last week, an article appeared in the Journal of American Medical Association describing the results of a study in 50,000 nurses followed over several years time.  It was noted that those that drank a single sugar-sweetened beverage per day gained a substantially greater amount of weight than those that drank less than one sugar-sweetened beverage per month.  In addition, those who were drinking sugar-sweetened beverages had an 80% greater likelihood of developing diabetes.

     In a study from the British Medical Journal, completed in an English school system, one wing of a school was allowed to continue to have their soda pop vending machines and no comment from the teachers or staff regarding the use of same.  In another wing of the same school, the children were instructed on the avoidance of sugar-sweetened beverages and the vending machines were removed completely from that wing of the school.  Children in that wing were encouraged to drink non-sweetened beverages and water instead of the sugar sweetened pop.  By the end of the school year, there was no change in the average weight of the children encouraged to drink water.  In the wing of the school where children drank sugar-sweetened pop, there was a 7% increase in morbid obesity in those children.

     The obesity problem in the United States carries many health risks.  Heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all related to excessive weight.  Many people find the social stigma of excessive weight provides more grief than the health risks. Thus the weight control industry in the United States is blooming with all kinds of diets, and exercise equipment that really have never had a demonstrated impact to control weight in the long run for the general population.  As mentioned, gastric surgery does have a long-term beneficial effect but is a drastic step to take.

     The real answer to the overweight problem in our country is going to have to be societal.  We are going to have to recognize that there are limitations on the public’s freedom to use recreational drugs or drink excessively of alcoholic beverages.  There is now need for some type of societal/governmental discouragement of eating excessively.  A first and easy step will be to address the problem of sugar-sweetened beverages.  And those that like them are going to scream that their freedoms are being curtailed.

     As a closing remark, one of the most ironic aspects of our society has to do with the prices of gasoline.  I find it amazing that we complain bitterly about the price of gasoline at $2.00 a gallon but I never hear anyone complain about the price of bottled water at $4.80 a gallon.  By the way, tap water is free and has no added sugar.  Sometimes human behavior is really strange.