That tasty soda a highway to hospital or worse

The intake of sugar is known to complicate the body’s ability to effectively manage weight. Sugar in the bloodstream disrupts hormone function and, when consumed to excess, sugar is stored in the body as fat.

Weight gain—especially increased abdominal fat—is a known risk factor of serious health conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin are no better. They have been linked to a horde of health conditions, too, ranging from headaches to stroke. Soda, other sugar-sweetened beverages and sugar dense foods are closely linked to the world’ growing health problems.
 

Soda linked to heart attacks 
Numerous studies confirm that consuming even one soda a day can significantly increase men's risk of coronary heart disease and death.
According to a study published earlier this year, men who drank the most soda "had a 20 percent higher relative risk of coronary heart disease." Regardless of age, exercise and smoking habits, body mass index, alcohol consumption and family history of heart disease, frequent consumption of soda was directly associated with heart attack risk in men.
David S. Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D. of Children's Hospital Boston, said "Sugar in all its forms may be the single most important dietary cause of obesity and heart disease…" By replacing sugar-loaded regular soda with naturally sweetened alternatives, the risk and occurrence of these conditions can be greatly reduced.
Artificially sweetened drinks no better
Artificially sweetened drinks do not provide a safe alternative. Studies confirm that drinking artificial sweeteners vastly increases a person's risk of stroke, heart attack and death by vascular diseases like peripheral artery disease and aneurysm. By consuming two artificially sweetened drinks daily, a person's waistline will grow by about 500 percent more than someone who does drinks pure, clean water.
According to research, fatty tissue cells have receptor for sweetness. This suggests that, even without calories, "artificial sweeteners could cause weight gain by directly stimulating the development of new fat cells."
Dr. Ludwig avoids artificial sweeteners, and recommends them "only as a transitional aid to wean people off sugary beverages."
A sugar substitute is an artificial food additive that duplicates the effect of sugar in taste but with less actual nutritional value. A natural substitution that is readily available in many grocery stores is Xylitol or Stevia.
Stevia is much sweeter than sugar and has none of sugar's unhealthy side effects. It is also a great, safe alternative to help prevent and manage the development of type-2 diabetes.
In nature, sweet foods are packed with calories, so the brain naturally prepares its metabolism to burn those calories. However, research has shown that when the sweetness is present, but calories are not, metabolism slows to a crawl. The brain is then tricked in to eating more, and because metabolism has slowed, more calories are then stored as fat.
People often say that their metabolism slows as they age but much of this slowing is self-inflicted. Storing fat is a red flag for diabetes, heart disease, cancer and a vast array of other health conditions such as chronic pain and arthritis.
Sugary, sweet drinks and foods are the ultimate example of living in the moment and not thinking about the future. We must enjoy the present without sacrificing the future. Our choices today will impact our outcomes tomorrow. 

Dr. Cory Couillard is an international healthcare speaker and columnist. He works in collaboration with the World Health Organization's goals of disease prevention and global healthcare education. Views do not necessarily reflect endorsement.