Consuming the drink can have severe impacts on our bodies, potentially triggering heart disease and diabetes – with ultra-processed versions of the beverage linked to mental health problems
Leading gut expert Dr Tim Spector has warned against the overconsumption of a popular household drink – as it could play a major role in triggering four serious health issues.
Consuming fizzy drinks can have severe impacts on our bodies, Dr Tim said, with ultra-processed beverages linked to mental health problems. Speaking on The Model Health Show with podcast host Shawn Stevenson, he said: “All the studies around the world show that people who consume large amounts of these sodas are going to get more heart disease, more diabetes, more obesity, and also interestingly more mental health problems.
“That’s a fairly new phenomenon, we’ve started to look at the effects of these ultra-processed beverages on mental health”, he added. The doctor cited previous studies as he backed up his claims: “I think they’re absolutely terrible, (It) consistently comes out as the worst thing to be eating or drinking, in all the epidemiology studies, is the use of these sodas.”
While a number of fizzy drink brands in leading supermarkets brandish their high nutritional benefits, Dr Tim warned that these so-called perks are being compromised by one particularly harmful ingredient.
The expert admitted: “It doesn’t matter whether it’s high protein, it’s got added vitamin C, it’s got you know whatever it says is on it. They’ve generally either got really high levels of sugar in them or they’ve got high levels of artificial sweeteners in them and in different ways they’re both really, really bad for the body.”
Along with thousands of fellow medical professionals around the world, Dr Tim urged Brits to learn how to look after their gut microbiome, highlighting its role in our overall health. To explain how, ZOE, a health science company co-founded by the Dr Tim, shared how the gut microbiome works, saying: “there are trillions of microbes that live in your gut.
“Bacteria are the most common type. But there are also viruses, fungi, and protozoa, which are small organisms made up of single cells.” They added: “Together these make the gut microbiota, the collection of all the organisms that live in the gut.”
