Cola may not be so sweet for women’s bones, according to new research that suggests the beverage boosts osteoporosis risk.
“Among women, cola beverages were associated with lower bone mineral density,” said lead researcher Katherine Tucker, director of the Epidemiology and Dietary Assessment Program at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.
There was a pretty clear dose-response, Tucker added. “Women who drink cola daily had lower bone mineral density than those who drink it only once a week,” she said. “If you are worried about osteoporosis, it is probably a good idea to switch to another beverage or to limit your cola to occasional use.”
About 55 percent of Americans, mostly women, are at risk for developing osteoporosis, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.
In the study, Tucker’s team collected data on more than 2,500 participants in the Framingham Osteoporosis Study, averaging just below 60 years of age. The researchers looked at bone mineral density at three different hip sites, as well as the spine.
They found that in women, drinking cola was associated with lower bone mineral density at all three hip sites, regardless of age, menopause, total calcium and vitamin D intake, or smoking or drinking alcohol. Women reported drinking an average of five carbonated drinks a week, four of which were cola.
Bone density among women who drank cola daily was almost 4 percent less, compared with women who didn’t drink cola, Tucker said. “This is quite significant when you are talking about the density of the skeleton,” she said.
The reason may have to do with phosphoric acid in cola, which can cause leeching of calcium from bones to help neutralize the acid, Tucker said.
One expert agrees that women should reduce the amount of cola they drink.
“I would expect this finding,” said Dr. Mone Zaidi, director of the Mount Sinai Bone Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City. “It’s probably a caffeine-related problem.”
Women should limit their caffeine intake, Zaidi said. “Caffeine interferes with calcium absorption, which results in less bone formation,” he said.
–American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec’s comments on Cola Raises Women’s Osteoporosis Risk.
This research stated something that has been known in alternative healing circles for quite a number of years and what that is that soft drinks cause an increase of osteoporosis, they leach calcium out of the bones. Now as this study showed, it was one of two possible reasons why it does this. It does this number 1 because of the caffeine in the cola and as the study stated that caffeine affects calcium absorption. So, if there is caffeine going into the body what will happen is the body will not be able to absorb the calcium properly. The other possibility was due to the phosphoric acid in the cola, cola being acidic, it leaches calcium from the bones to neutralize the acid. We can expand this on saying it’s not just cola, its sugar, it’s anything that is acidic to the body.
Really osteoporosis comes from two reasons. These are the reasons people get osteoporosis. Number one is because they are putting acidic substances into the body. The body is alkaline, the blood is alkaline and it must maintain its alkalinity or you will die. So, whatever is acid that goes into the body the body has to buffer the acid and it does that most conveniently by puling calcium out of the bones, because calcium is alkaline and it alkalizes the acid, it neutralizes it.So, it’s not just cola we’re talking about, it’s all things that turn into acid into the body and let’s state them right now. Animal products, this is meat, chicken, fish, this is eggs, dairy products, this is all animal products are acidic in the body. This is refined starches, flours and sugars. Of course cola having tremendous amount of refined sugar is going to be acidic on the body, but so is bread, so is pasta, so is all refined flours and sugars. So the things that we have to eliminate from our diet are refined sugars, refined flours, these breads, these pastas, these things that turn into sugar that are acidic in the body and of course the animal products which are highly acidic. The most acidic substance that is put into the body is refined sugar, but then right after that is the acidicness of animal products and refined starches.
The other interesting note is caffeine. Caffeine inhibits the absorption of calcium, affects calcium metabolism. This is important because we want to make sure the rule for the health is always, don’t do something that’s good for one thing and bad for another thing. It has to be good for all things. Caffeine is found in coffee, it’s found in cola’s, it’s found in teas, it’s found in chocolate, it’s found in all these things. So we don’t want to put caffeine into the body because first of all it over stimulates the adrenal glands, which puts you into adrenaline stress mode, which makes the body more acidic which also makes the body kick into a fight, flight response, which in doing that it shuts down the immune system and the digestive system which if that’s maintained for any length of time is definitely going to lead to inflammation and disease.
So you do not want to put caffeine into the body and you do not want to put anything that is acidic into the body. Of course that is sugar, but that is starches, that’s breads, that’s pastas that’s meat, that’s beef, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy products all of it. What’s the other thing that causes osteoporosis? The other thing that causes osteoporosis is lack of muscle contraction. So when you don’t use your muscles enough and don’t put stimulus on those bones by the tugging of the muscles and tendons on the bones, the bones will leach calcium. This is well documented when any astronaut goes into space they lose calcium out of their bones if they don’t exercise intensely because they are in a zero gravity situation where the body is not being used, it’s not being stressed, the muscles are not being contracted under the bones. This is why typically women are more osteoporotic than men, because in history men did more physical heavy lifting labor than women did. Women did very intense labor but it wasn’t as muscular intense to build those muscle and pull on those bones. So this is why women in this day and age are more tendency to be osteoporosis than men. Men and women both get it more from diet from eating acid foods which have to be alkalized which pulls the calcium out of the bone, but typically men have a denser bone structure due to the muscle contraction and heavier work load that they have had, or it’s just in their more genetic nature to have more of a heavier muscle mass.
So, how do we affect this? Live the 7 Basic Steps to Total Health each and every day of our life and in those 7 Basic Steps we make sure that the food is living raw plant based in origin which is not acidic at all. It is alkaline and maintains the alkalinity of the body and does not pull any calcium out of the bones.
