Women's Health: Sugary drinks can attack your health

There was an editorial recently in “The New England Journal of Medicine” whose headline easily caught my eye: “Ounces of Prevention-The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages”, by Drs. Kelly Brownell and Thomas Frieden.

Because this is a health column rather than a political column, I don't plan to address the arguments for or against taxing sugar-sweetened beverages. The text of the editorial is available online at www.nejm.org, and I’d love to hear back from any of you with your reactions.

What I definitely would like to address, however, is the effect on our health from drinking sugared beverages.

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve had conversations with my patients about their weight-loss efforts, hearing over and over again how they can’t lose weight no matter what they do.

“What about sweetened drinks?” I ask. “Well, I do have that Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper for breakfast every morning…” they innocently reply. Sometimes I don't even need to ask — the cup has accompanied them into the office.

Most people have no idea of the number of calories represented by the liquids they down every day. An 8 ounce serving of Coke or Pepsi (just so I’m not picking on Dr. Pepper exclusively) has about 100 calories, or about 12 calories an ounce.

My guess is that no one drinks just one 8-ounce serving, so for that 32 ounce large cup you get 400 calories. That may not sound like a lot, but it is more than is in the medium serving of French fries you bought to go with the drink.

As if putting that number of empty calories into our own bodies isn’t bad enough, sugary drinks are a major cause of the continuing rise in childhood obesity. According to the editorial in The New England Journal, 10 to 15 percent of the calories consumed by children and adolescents now come from sweetened beverages.

The offending drinks aren't always soft drinks-non-carbonated beverages such as sports drinks and fruit-flavored drinks are just as unhealthy. Having “electrolytes” and being marketed for athletes does not make sugar and corn syrup-containing drinks into performance enhancers.

Summer has arrived at last, and as the weather heats up we will need to reach for cold drinks more and more often to replace the sweat we’re all losing during that half hour of exercise a day. (You are doing that, aren’t you?)

Consider that you’ve just burned about 100 calories by walking or running a mile. Do you want to negate that effort by drinking a measly eight ounces of a soft drink? And if you haven't burned any calories from exercise, do you want to add even more extra pounds to your waistline by reaching for that sugar-filled cup?

Don’t wait to find out if new taxes on your favorite beverages will help make that decision for you. Drink healthy, and encourage your children to do the same.


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