The FUZZ on FIZZY Drinks: What are they capable of?

What is a carbonated soft drink?

A carbonated soft drink is simply a drink that contains flavouring (natural or artificial), sweetener, and carbonated water. Other ingredients that may be present in your soft drink include preservatives, food colouring, and caffeine. They’re called “soft” drinks in comparison to “hard” drinks because they don’t contain any alcohol.

What is Carbonation?

Carbonation is the process of introducing carbon dioxide (CO2) into soft drinks. This process includes high pressure. When this pressure is reduced, carbon dioxide is released as small bubbles. These small bubbles give your soft drink its fizz.

Carbonation makes your drink more acidic because of carbonic acid added. Carbonic acid enhances the flavour, helps to prevent your soft drink from going bad (acts as a preservative), and produces a mild burning sensation.

What’s Bad about Soft Drinks?

Here are some of the significant ill effects of soft drink consumption:

One to two cans of soft drink per day can increase your chances of developing metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The high sugar content of soft drinks raises your blood glucose and insulin levels. Which increases visceral fat and leads to conditions like metabolic syndrome. High insulin levels can also lead to overeating by increasing hunger, which makes you reach for another sugary drink or treat, and the cycle continues!
Your teeth don’t function well in an acidic environment. Soft drinks can contain both phosphoric acid and carbonic acid. While carbonic acid is not as acidic as phosphoric acid, both still contribute to cavities because they can damage the enamel coating on your teeth. Enamel is the white part of your teeth that you brush. Carbonic acid is in all carbonated soft drinks, while phosphoric acid is found mostly in dark coloured soft drinks like cola. Also, if your kidneys are not functioning well, phosphorus can build up in the blood disrupting the pH.
Phosphoric acid can also cause magnesium loss from your muscles and depletion of calcium from your teeth and bones. This acid in soft drinks makes your stomach release sodium bicarbonate; a base to neutralise the acid. This leads to an acidic blood pH so your body compensates by moving minerals from your bones and muscles (calcium and magnesium respectively) to reduce the acidity. This makes your bones and muscles weak and may predispose you to osteoporosis later in your life. While phosphorus is good for your health, you can get plenty of phosphorus from your food so that’s another good reason to stay away from soft drinks and protect your bones.

Carbonic acid is unstable and easily decomposes. When this happens inside your stomach, gas buildups, making you burp more (to release the gas). This gas build up can also give you an uncomfortable bloated sensation.

We have just covered some of the most significant effects of carbonic acid and drinking too many soft drinks. It’s up to you if you still want to continue consuming them. We just want you to be aware of the health consequences.