How your body changes when you stop taking soft drinks

Nothing beats a cold fizzy drink on a hot day, right? Wrong!

Despite the many health warnings against soft drinks, it has become like an addictive drug to many. Both young and old prefer it to water or juice at any given moment.

Infused with caffeine, chemical additives and refined sugar, it becomes next to impossible to give it up. Before you know it, you are piling up kilos and your health deteriorates.

But have you ever asked yourself what would happen to your body if you gave up this sweet addiction?

Due to the excessive amounts of sugar you were consuming in a glass, can or 500ml bottle of soda, with time sugar cravings reduce drastically. Laced with up to 8,000 times artificial sweeteners, your body is always expecting a high calorie intake which if it doesn’t get, will have you running around for more foods to fill your cravings hence the weight gain.

In the long run, excessive consumption of soft drinks causes severe inflammation of the kidneys leading to damage eventually inhibiting their function. Playing a crucial role, they filter about 120 to 150 quarts of blood to produce about 1 to 2 quarts of urine, composed of wastes and extra fluid. This in turn keeps your body healthy and free of diseases caused by toxins.

Once that bad habit stops, your health will improve and your kidneys together with other organs will bounce back to their proper functions.

Soda packs obscenely high levels of sugar that end up being stored as body fat. And to make it worse, soft drinks contain artificial sweeteners (fructose) that are not digested by the body like normal sugar, glucose. A higher intake of natural drinks that produce glucose will meet your body needs and one will tend to consume less than when they take drinks that contain fructose, which triggers the hunger hormone to keep asking for more. This relationship with soda will see you add on pounds and a break from it will see the body shed off some kilos.

According to a 2015 study published in the British Medical Journal, soft drinks are associated with a higher prevalence of Type 2 diabetes. This comes as a result of excessive weight gain which happens to be one of the causes of diabetes.

A decrease in soda consumption will reverse the risk due to less weight gain hence less risk of getting Type 2 diabetes.

The acidity in soda is bad news for your digestive system, eroding tooth enamel and worsening acid reflux. But diet sodas are especially treacherous for your gut. Refined sugar and artificial sweeteners happen to be inflammatory by nature. These refined sweeteners have been stripped of all nutrients, fiber and minerals. This means your body gets more depleted trying to break them down and digest them which leaves you depleted, inflamed and at risk for chronic health issues.

Once you stop taking these dangerous drinks and replace them with organic substitutes, your body is able to heal itself and you will get sick less.

Because sugar robs your body of key nutrients like calcium which is essential for strong and healthy bones, you are likely to break them and stand a higher risk of developing osteoporosis especially as you get older. The caramel color in soda contains artificial phosphorus which leaches on calcium and other nutrients your bones need. A decrease in intake or a stop, will lead to stronger bones.

Due to caffeine, your body becomes dehydrated due to the diuretic effect it creates. Soft drinks tend to irritate the bladder due to citric acid, phosphoric acid, acidic carbonation, artificial sweeteners and caffeine, creating UTI like symptoms.

Eliminating soda and increasing your uptake in water will lessen your risk of bladder infection.