Let’s find out ‘What Is The #1 Worst Drink That Makes You Look Older?’ People have been looking for the fabled fountain of youth since the beginning of time. For innumerable people today, achieving agelessness and living longer, better lives remains a top priority.
While anti-aging products like lotions, gadgets, and diets that promise to turn back the hands of time may make you feel younger, there may be a simpler approach to slow down the aging process. Eliminating one particular drink from your diet may help stop premature aging in its tracks, according to research, which shows that it can make you age more quickly.
There is no beverage worse for aging than sugar-sweetened soda. Regular soda use has been linked to an increased risk of weight gain and a number of ailments, and research suggests that it may even have cellular effects on your body. These elements all have a role in unhealthy, quicker aging.
According to Amy Goodson, MS, RD, CSSD, LD, author of The Sports Nutrition Playbook and member of our Expert Medical Board, regularly consuming sugar-sweetened beverages can ultimately increase your risk for a number of diseases like obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and more. “Adding extra sugar to the aging equation does not help,” the author writes, “since our risk for these diseases inherently grows as we age.”
Soda Can Increase Your Risk For Disease
Consistent soda consumption increases your risk of developing diseases for which aging is already a risk factor, which is one of the main ways it can hasten the aging process. This includes conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, as Goodson pointed out.
Regardless of whether a person was also obese, a 2019 study published in Nutrients found a link between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. One smaller cohort study with female teachers in California found that, after a 25-year follow-up, drinking one or more servings of sugar-sweetened beverages per day was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
While soda can raise your risk of disease, it can also have a negative impact on your body’s cells.
Soda Can Impact Your Body On A Cellular Level
A 2014 research that appeared in the American Journal of Public Health found that sugary beverages can speed up cellular aging.
Data from 5,309 U.S. adults between the ages of 20 and 65 who had no history of cardiovascular disease were examined for this study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The data were collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1999 to 2002.
The telomeres—sections of DNA at the ends of chromosomes—found in white blood cells of people who consumed more sugar-sweetened beverages were shorter. White blood cell telomere shortening has been associated with a shorter life expectancy and a higher risk of chronic illness.
Elissa Epel, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at UCSF, said in a statement that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened sodas “might influence disease development, not only by straining the body’s metabolic control of sugars but also through accelerated cellular aging of tissues.”
Epel continued, “This is the first evidence that soda is linked to telomere shortening. Telomere shortening starts long before disease onset, according to this finding, which was true regardless of age, race, income, and education level, Epel said. Although the study was only done on adults, this may also apply to children.
The long-term impacts are rather noticeable, even if the study’s authors were keen to stress out that this result is only a connection and not a proof of causality. According to the study, consuming 20-ounce serving sizes of sugar-sweetened sodas on a daily basis results in 4.6 extra years of aging, which is comparable to the amount of telomere shortening brought on by smoking cigarettes.
Soda Can Mess With Your Gut, Too
Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, was linked to oxidative stress, inflammation, and changes in gut bacteria and the intestinal microbiota, all of which are linked to premature aging, according to a review published in Current Nutrition Reports in 2021. The authors of that study made a straightforward suggestion to help lessen these effects: if possible, swap soda for a healthy beverage.
Your body will appreciate it if, the next time you have a craving for something bubbly, you opt for a seltzer with lemon.
