Which Is Worse Beer Or Soda?

You may have read or heard health advisories that caution you against chugging too much alcohol or downing a can of cola (or whichever soft drink your choice of poison is). But are they equally harmful to your health or is one more dangerous than the other? Read on to find out. Let’s use 4 key parameters to compare the harmful effects of both drinks:

Toxicity

Drinking too much alcohol over a prolonged period of time can-

• Slow down the activity of your nervous system.
• Lead to cirrhosis of the liver.
• Inhibit the function of the kidneys and the pancreas.
• Cause ulcers of the stomach.
• Cut off blood supply to the heart and gradually weaken it.
• Increase the risk of contracting cancer.

What can soft drinks do to your body?

• Drinking soft drinks in excess will lead to the deposit of fats in your liver and increase your risk of fatty liver disease,
• It can cause weight gain, especially around the tummy.
• It can adversely affect your heart health.

As far as toxicity is concerned, alcohol has more troubling implications on your health than soft drinks.

Glycaemic Score

When you ingest a particular food or drink, it raises the level of sugar in your blood. This is the glycaemic index and a score between 0-100 is ascribed to all foods and drinks according to the sugar boost. Distilled alcoholic drinks such as vodka, rum, brandy or whiskey have a negligible glycaemic index.

In that sense, they’re not very harmful. But cola and soft drinks of that ilk are packed with sugar. They can cause a dramatic surge of sugar levels in your body. This could eventually lead to insulin resistance – the culprit behind Type 2 Diabetes, So, on that score, alcohol is less damaging than soft drinks.

However, cocktails – which are sugary alcoholic drinks, have the same effect on your body as soft drinks. So, drink responsibly in more ways than one.

Weight Gain

It’s well known that both alcohol and soft drinks can be fattening. Moreover, people tend to consume both with fried, unhealthy snacks that do your weight-loss goals no favours. Alcohol is a hunger stimulant. However, drinking in moderation – one drink if you’re a woman and two if you’re a man, will not lead to substantial weight gain.

Nutritional Value

There’s not much to choose between alcohol and soft drinks when it comes to nutritional benefits. Neither drink has any dietary value. However, studies have shown that infinitesimal consumption of alcohol can boost heart health and mitigate the effects of Hypertension, Alzheimers or Diabetes.

Red wine contains antioxidants that can fight infections, keep the dreaded free radical in check and even ward off cancer. Soft drinks, on the other hand, do no favours to your body in terms of nutrition and can only have a ruinous effect on you. Alcohol and soft drinks both have the potential to wreak havoc on your health.

But, between the devil and the deep sea, alcohol is a little less dangerous than soft drinks simply because it has a handful of health benefits. But, only if it is consumed in moderation.

Is soda worse than alcohol for liver?

When you choose a sugary soda instead of alcohol every day, you may think you’re doing your liver a favor. But that daily soft drink can be harmful, especially to your liver — as damaging as alcohol can be. Once it reaches the liver, the sugar in beverages can get converted into fat that’s stored in liver cells.

Is beer worse than mixed drinks?

Drinking Hard Liquor vs. Beer: Which Is the More Addicting and Damaging Type of Alcohol? – Alcohol is generally made up of the same compounds, so beer and hard liquor both pose similar risks to a person’s health. The only catch is that hard liquor comes with a higher threat because it contains a higher alcohol content than beer.

Which has more calories beer or Coke?

Which alcoholic beverages have the most (or least) calories? A typical 6 oz. glass of wine or 12 oz. beer has as many calories as a can of Coke (140). Some beers have twice that much. But you’d never know the calories in alcoholic drinks from many of their labels and non-chain-restaurant menus. (Chain restaurants must disclose calories for drinks on their menus, and some beer brewers and other alcohol companies label calories voluntarily.) Already a subscriber? More on food & health : Which alcoholic beverages have the most (or least) calories?

Is drinking beer and soda bad?

A shock finding this week is that alcohol mixed with diet soda makes you drunk faster. Researchers gave college students vodka drinks with regular soda and with diet soda, and the diet soda group got more intoxicated, faster – about 20% more intoxicated than those who mixed regular soda with liquor, according to research published Tuesday in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.” Why do people get more intoxicated when they choose to pair diet instead of regular soda with their booze? It has to do with digestion.

1. The diet soda mixture passes quickly through the stomach, putting alcohol into our bloodstream faster.
2. Apparently the sugar in a mixed drink actually slows down the effects of alcohol, researchers say after conducting an alcohol test on participants.
3. Scientists at Northern Kentucky University asked students who were social drinkers to come to their lab on separate days to test the effects of alcohol.

During one visit, the students drank vodka with diet soda and at another session they mixed the vodka with a sugar-sweetened soft drink. Each beverage had the potency of about four mixed drinks, a dose that has been shown to raise blood alcohol levels to about the legal driving limit.

At each visit, the students downed their drink in about 10 minutes. Using breath tests to measure alcohol levels, researchers found that students who drank vodka and regular soda registered just under the legal limit. But drinking the vodka-diet soda mixture tipped students over the limit. Another study measuring alcohol levels in people leaving bars or night clubs also found that diet soda with liquor drinkers were more impaired.

People often mix diet soda and alcohol to save on calories, with women making this choice more frequently than men. But researchers find that it’s much more harmful to the brain and to the liver if you have a higher blood alcohol level. Those few extra calories are not going to make that much difference in weight control, especially considering how many calories alcoholic drinks have to begin with.

Is beer or soda healthier?

13 September 2019 | 5:00 pm It is next to impossible to avoid a good beverage especially during social interactions hence why it is necessary to make healthy choices in deciding which beverage to take. There is a long-standing debate on the merits of various beverages, including soft drinks and alcohol. Which one is the healthier choice? Continuing reading on the details It is next to impossible to avoid a good beverage especially during social interactions hence why it is necessary to make healthy choices in deciding which beverage to take. There is a long-standing debate on the merits of various beverages, including soft drinks and alcohol.

Which one is the healthier choice? Continuing reading on the details about the healthier choice between alcohol and soft drinks. Nutrition: If you are to compare alcohol and soft drinks from a nutrition point of view then alcohol is easily your winner as soft drinks have absolutely no nutritional value with processed sugar being one of the major components.

Sugar will bring down your insulin resistance due to the rise of toxin influx in the body and this makes you a prey to diseases like diabetes. On the other hand, beer contains a small amount of protein due to the ingredients added when it is brewed for consumption and also contains some amount of antioxidants and potassium.

Ilo calories: Both alcohol and soft drinks contain plenty of kilo calories but on the parameter of kilo calories, soft drinks are a healthier choice over alcohol. People tend to drink soft drinks at a slower pace, which means that they consume less of it. Once you start enjoying an alcoholic drink, you tend to take more of them and much faster.

Also, alcohol makes you hungry, which implies that you start reaching out for various kinds of snacks and other unhealthy food. In such cases, you will tend to gain weight much faster if you choose alcohol every time. This will not really be the case when you choose soft drinks.

• Toxins: Alcohol is brewed in such a way that ensures it carries a lot of toxins, which are not good for the liver and heart in the long run.
• These toxins can easily clog the arteries and create complications for the functioning of the liver.
• Glycemic index: This is the count that is accorded to the level of insulin resistance in one’s drink of choice.

For alcohol, the glycemic resistance is much higher, which means that you have better insulin resistance as compared to other soft drinks, which are high in sugar content. Therefore, it makes alcohol a highly unhealthy choice, which can also result in diabetes in the long run, if one ingests too much of it.

What is the #1 worst drink for your liver?

The #1 Worst Drink for Your Liver, Says Dietitian Unwinding with a glass of or a cold beer after work always seems luxurious, and few celebrations feel complete without a glass of, While you can get away with a drink every now and then, dietitians agree that does the most liver damage out of any beverage.

1. Alcohol is the worst drink for your liver as it makes it harder on the liver to break down and remove toxins from the body,” says,
2. Alcohol is known to cause damage to this vital organ, but a wide variety of alcoholic drinks can also pose health risks,” says Janet Coleman, RD at,
3. In fact, some people may be at risk of poisoning if they consume too much alcohol.

The Food and Drug Administration recommends that men consume no more than 24 grams of alcohol per day, while women should limit themselves to 12 grams per day.” Certain types of alcoholic drinks end up contributing the most towards, “Hard liquor contains more alcohol than beer or wine, making it more dangerous for your liver,” continues Coleman.

Another alcoholic beverage also takes a considerable toll on your liver.”Unlike other alcoholic drinks, hard cider has a high concentration of ethanol which can lead to stomach problems when consumed in large quantities,” says Coleman. RELATED:

Luckily, anyone who enjoys the buzz contained in each of these drinks can find some at their local grocery store. “The best replacement would be a, which contributes good bacteria to the and does not contribute toxins for your liver to remove,” says Valencia.

1. Guayusa, an alternative drink to alcohol, has been around for many years in Ecuador and other South American countries,” adds Coleman.
2. It is a natural stimulant that is said to relieve stress and boost energy levels without affecting the mind the same way does.” While research on the benefits of guayusa has yet to be done, Coleman notes that this drink is “considered by some as nature’s energy drink; a healthier alternative to coffee and tea.

It is used in traditional medicine to treat headaches and menstrual pain, among other things.” For more drinking tips, read these next: : The #1 Worst Drink for Your Liver, Says Dietitian

Is beer more unhealthy?

Beer: Is It Good for You? Reviewed by Christine Mikstas, RD, LD on November 17, 2022 from the Serving Size 12 Fluid ounce (354 g) *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Vitamin C 0% Iron 0% Vitamin B6 0% Magnesium 0% Calcium 1% Vitamin D 0% Cobalamin 0% Vitamin A 0%

Beer is one of the oldest beverages in the world. Beer recipes can be found in Egyptian tombs, Mesopotamian archeological sites, and Babylonian texts. Today, beer is found in grocery stores and breweries around the world. People are even rediscovering the joy of making beer at home.

• Beer is easy enough to make, after all.
• It’s the product of fermenting grain into alcohol.
• It may have even been one of the first inventions after the Agricultural Revolution.
• Beer has been important in human culture for thousands of years.
• It’s no wonder some people proclaim that it has health benefits.

While science can support some of these claims, beer also has drawbacks. One can of beer (about 12 ounces) contains: Beer is an excellent source of: Depending on the color, some beers are also good sources of, The darker the beer, the more antioxidants it tends to have. Antioxidants fight in your body, reducing the risk of chronic conditions and certain forms of cancer. As mentioned, beer is a rich source of vitamins and minerals, and some also contain antioxidants.

1. Research supports a number of potential health benefits to drinking moderate amounts of beer: Lower Risk of Several reviews have suggested that consuming one to two beers a day may help lower your risk of heart disease.
2. In fact, beer may be as effective at improving general heart health as wine at comparable alcohol levels.

One study showed that one drink a day lowered the risk of all-cause mortality for women and up to two beers a day produced the same results for men. While one study is not enough to identify the cause for this, research is promising. Improved Drinking light amounts of alcohol may help reduce the risk of developing and help people with diabetes control their blood sugar more effectively.

• One study showed that one to two alcoholic drinks a day could lower the risk of developing diabetes by as much as 50%.
• This effect is strongest for low-sugar beers, such as light beers, so pay attention to the type of beer you drink.
• Increased Bone Strength Early research suggests that moderate amounts of beer may help strengthen bones for men and postmenopausal women.

This may be because alcohol in general, in moderate amounts, can help your bones. But this benefit sharply drops when consumption passes two drinks a day, so moderation is key. The same aspects that make beer so potent can also cause health problems for people.

1. Once beer consumption is heavy, over two drinks per day, it carries many potential risks.
2. Consider the following before adding significant amounts of beer to your diet: Potential for All alcohol carries the potential for dependency.
3. Alcohol is an addictive substance, so people with a family history of addiction should be cautious with drinking beer or any other alcohol.

Furthermore, heavy drinking eliminates most health benefits of beer, making addiction a double-edged sword. Reduced Life Expectancy Heavy consumption significantly increases your risk of death from all causes. Studies show that heavy drinking reduces life expectancy by up to 28 years.

Increased Risk of Drinking more than two beers a day can increase chances of developing fatty liver disease, or, Weight Gain

Many beers are high in calories, so drinking large amounts frequently can lead to substantial weight gain. “Beer belly” is a common term to describe someone who has extra weight around their waist. Studies have confirmed that drinking beer increases waist circumference. © 2022 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved. : Beer: Is It Good for You?

Does beer make you fat or is it calories?

Why the calories in alcohol can lead to a ‘beer belly’ – Drinking alcohol will add to the overall calories we consume each day. Calories from alcohol are ’empty calories’, meaning they have little nutritional benefit. So consuming extra calories through drinking can lead to weight gain.1,2 Typically, men tend to show weight gain around their middle 3,4, which is how the term ‘beer belly’ came about.

Is Coke unhealthier than beer?

HR – Talent Management Professional | (Training – Recruitment – Performance – OD) – Published Oct 10, 2016 1. Calories: Coke and beer have similar number of calories for the same quantity. Not much difference there.2. Nutrition: Coke has absolutely no nutritional benefit.

• It has lots of sugar and higher sodium content than beer.
• Beer on other hand has trace amounts of protein and has higher potassium content and antioxidants.3.
• Glycemic Index: This is where the major difference comes in.
• Coke has a glycemic index of around 90 whereas beer has glycemic index of less than 15.

Which means from an insulin resistance point of view, beer is much better.4. How it affects body: Coke has no nutritional benefit for body. On the other hand regular consumption will reduce your insulin sensitivity which may lead to weight gain and diabetes.

Studies have shown that drinking beer in moderation has health benefits. However, alcohol is treated as toxin by your liver and puts significant strain on it. If over consumed, beer will be more detrimental for your health than coke. In the end it comes down to how much you are drinking. If I were given a choice of a can of beer vs a can of coke a day, I will definitely choose beer.

But I will make sure that I will stop with that can.

What is worse alcohol or soda?

Last Updated: Jan 10, 2023 There are many kinds of food items that can do us a world of good. But there are certain man made food items that are synthetic in nature, and have more demerits than merits when it comes to our health. There is a long standing debate on the merits of various beverages, including soft drinks and alcohol.

Kilo calories: It is a well-known fact that both alcohol and soft drinks have plenty of kilo calories with one cola containing over 1000 kilojoules as they are known. Yet, as per this parameter, it would be a healthier choice if you were to choose soft drinks because even though they both have the same amount of calories, one tends to drink soft drinks at a slower pace, which means that you consume less of it. Once you start enjoying an alcoholic drink, you tend to take more of them and much faster. Also, alcohol makes you hungry, which implies that you start reaching out for various kinds of snacks and other unhealthy food. In such cases, you will tend to gain weight much faster if you choose alcohol every time. This will not really be the case when you choose soft drinks. Toxins: The way alcohol is brewed ensures that it carries a whole lot of toxins, which are not good for your liver and heart in the long run. These toxins can easily clog your arteries and create complications for the functioning of the liver as well. Glycemic index: This is the count that is accorded to the level of insulin resistance in one’s drink of choice. For alcohol, the glycemic resistance is much higher, which means that you have better insulin resistance as compared to other soft drinks, which are high in sugar content. Therefore, it makes alcohol a highly unhealthy choice, which can also result in diabetes in the long run, if one ingests too much of it. Nutrition: From the nutrition point of view, cola and other soft drinks have absolutely no nutritional value because processed sugar is one of the main components. This will give rise to the toxin influx in the body and bring down the insulin resistance, which makes you susceptible to diseases like diabetes. Therefore, it would be healthier to have a beer rather than a cola because it has a small amount of protein due to the ingredients used when it is brewed for consumption. It also has some amount of antioxidants and potassium, If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult a General Physician,

Updates From Lybrate: Stay fit and strong by consuming Health Drinks, available at Lybrate. Being a blend of natural ingredients, these Natural products give a vitalizing boost of freshness. In case you have a concern or query, you can always consult the best general physicians online & get answers to your question via online doctor consultation,10419 people found this helpful

Is it bad to drink a beer a day?

Defining moderate – Moderate alcohol use for healthy adults generally means up to one drink a day for women and up to two drinks a day for men. Examples of one drink include:

• Beer: 12 fluid ounces (355 milliliters)
• Wine: 5 fluid ounces (148 milliliters)
• Distilled spirits (80 proof): 1.5 fluid ounces (44 milliliters)

Is beer belly caused by soda?

Carbonation is mostly water, and it’s typically calorie free, but it can really bloat your belly. ‘Because the carbonation comes from gas blended with water, when you drink a carbonated beverage, the gas can ‘puff out’ your stomach,’ Gidus says.

Why is beer healthier?

Here are 10 reasons why beer is not really bad for you, if had in moderation. Please note, this is not an encouragement to imbibe, especially if you are a teetotaler or have a medical condition 1. Beer drinkers live longer Moderate drinking is good for you, and beer is good for moderate drinking.

Everyone knows that if you drink too much, it’s not good for you. Let’s not pull punches: If you’re a drunk, you run into things, you drive into things, you get esophageal cancer, you get cirrhosis and other nasty conditions. But more and more medical research indicates that if you don’t drink at all, that’s not good for you either.

According to numerous independent studies, moderate drinkers live longer and better than drunks or teetotalers. Beer is perfect for moderate drinking because of its lower alcohol content and larger volume compared with wine or spirits. And as that old radical Thomas Jefferson said, “Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.” And he didn’t need a scientific study to tell him that.2.

Beer is all-natural Some know-it-alls will tell you that beer is loaded with additives and preservatives. The truth is that beer is as all-natural as orange juice or milk (maybe even more so – some of those milk & OJ labels will surprise you). Beer doesn’t need preservatives because it has alcohol and hops, both of which are natural preservatives.

Beer is only “processed” in the sense that bread is: It is cooked and fermented, then filtered and packaged. The same can be said for Heineken.3. Beer is low in calories, low in carbohydrates and has no fat or cholesterol For a completely natural beverage, beer offers serious low-calorie options.

Twelve ounces of Guinness has the same number of calories as 12 ounces of skim milk: about 125. That’s less than orange juice (150 calories), which is about the same as your standard, “full-calorie” beer. If beer were your only source of nutrition, you’d have to drink one every waking hour just to reach your recommended daily allowance of calories (2,000 to 2,500).

And nobody’s recommending you drink that many. The only natural drinks with fewer calories than beer are plain tea, black coffee and water, Surely, beer is loaded with those fattening carbohydrates, right? Wrong again. The average beer has about 12 grams of carbs per 12-ounce serving.

1. The U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance is 300 grams of carbohydrates in a standard 2,000-calorie diet.
2. In other words, you would need to drink an entire 24-pack case of beer – and then reach into a second case – simply to reach the government’s recommended daily allotment of carbohydrates.
3. You’re better off munching an apple or drinking some soda pop if you want to carbo-load.

Each has about 35 to 40 grams of carbs – three times the number found in a beer. Also, beer has no fat or cholesterol.4. Beer improves your cholesterol Beer not only has no cholesterol, it can actually improve the cholesterol in your body. In fact, drinking beer regularly and moderately will tilt your HDL/LDL cholesterol ratios the right way.

• You’ve got two kinds of cholesterol in your system: HDL, the “good” cholesterol that armor-plates your veins and keeps things flowing, and LDL, the “bad” cholesterol that builds up in your veins like sludge in your bathtub drain.
• Beer power-flushes the system and keeps the HDL levels up.
• According to some studies, as little as one beer a day can boost your HDL by up to 4 per cent.5.

Beer helps you chill The social aspects of moderate drinking are solidly beneficial to your health. In other words, to get out every now and then and relax with your buddies over a couple of beers.6. Beer has plenty o’ B vitamins Beer, especially unfiltered or lightly filtered beer, turns out to be quite nutritious, despite the years of suppression of those facts by various anti-alcohol groups.

• Beer has high levels of B vitamins, particularly folic acid, which is believed to help prevent heart attacks.
• Beer also has soluble fiber, good for keeping you regular, which in turn reduces the likelihood that your system will absorb unhealthy junk like fat.
• Beer also boasts significant levels of magnesium and potassium, in case you were planning on metal-plating your gut.7.

Beer is safer than water If you’re someplace where you are advised not to drink the water, the local beer is always a safer bet. It’s even safer than the local bottled water. Beer is boiled in the brewing process and is kept clean afterwards right through the bottle being capped and sealed, because if it isn’t, it goes bad in obvious ways that make it impossible to sell.

Even if it does go bad, though, there are no life-threatening bacteria bacteria (pathogens) that can live in beer. So drink up – even bad beer is safer than water.8. Beer prevents heart attacks If you want to get a bit more cutting-edge than vitamins, beer has other goodies for you. You’ve heard of the French Paradox, how the French eat their beautiful high-fat diet and drink their beautiful high-booze diet and smoke their nasty goat-hair cigarettes, but have rates of heart disease that are about one-third that of the rest of the world? It’s been credited to red wine and the antioxidants it contains.

Hey, guess what else has lots of antioxidants, as many as red wine? Dark beer! According to the American Heart Association, “there is no clear evidence that wine is more beneficial than other forms of alcoholic drink.” One study profiled in the British Medical Journal in 1999 said that the moderate consumption of three drinks a day could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 24.7 per cent.9.

Beer fights cancer The most amazing beer and health connection is something called xanthohumol, a flavonoid found only in hops. Xanthohumol is a potent antioxidant that inhibits cancer-causing enzymes, “much more potent than the major component in soy,” according Dr. Cristobal Miranda of the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University.

This xanthohumol stuff is so good for you that the Germans have actually brewed a beer with extra levels of it.10. Beer does not give you a beer belly A study done by researchers at the University College of London and the Institut Klinické a Experimentální Medicíny in Prague in 2003 showed no connection between the amount of beer people drank and the size of their overhang.

There is a common notion that beer drinkers are, on average, more ‘obese’ than either non-drinkers or drinkers of wine or spirits,” the researchers said. But they found that “the association between beer and obesity, if it exists, is probably weak.” Most studies have found that people who drink beer regularly (and moderately) not only don’t develop beer bellies – they weigh less than non-drinkers.

Beer can boost your metabolism, keep your body from absorbing fat and otherwise make you a healthier, less disgusting slob. Just drink it in moderation, as part of an otherwise healthy diet. So that’s it. Drink beer. You’ll live longer and be happier. You won’t get fat.

• In fact, you may weigh less.
• You’ll boost your metabolism, improve your health and reduce your risk of clogged arteries, heart attack and cancer.
• What more could you want? Beer calories content Beer contains a low amount of alcohol as compared to other hard drinks.
• It has only 4 to 6 per cent of alcohol by volume (ABV).

However, the amount of alcohol may vary as per the brand of beer you are consuming. A pint of beer contains 208 calories. Nutritional value 340 ml of standard beer contains: Calories:153 Protein: 1.6 grams Fat: 0 grams Carbs:13 grams Riboflavin: 7% of the DV Choline: 7% of the DV Magnesium: 5% of the DV Phosphorus: 4% of the DV Selenium: 4% of the DV Who should avoid beer The evidence certainly suggests that beer has some health benefits, but one must not forget that it does contain some amount of alcohol.

Is beer the healthiest alcoholic drink?

Alcohol isn’t a healthy choice in general, but some alcohol is better for you than others. Red wine, whiskey, tequila, and hard kombucha are healthier options than beer and sugary drinks. The CDC recommends you limit alcohol to 2 drinks a day if you’re male and 1 if you’re female.

Nearly 70% of American adults drink each year. While alcohol certainly has some negative health effects, there can also be advantages to moderate consumption. “We have to clarify that alcohol is, indeed, a poison. So we’re not trying to say alcohol itself is healthy,” says Megan Kober, a registered dietitian with Metabolism Makeovers.

How much soda is too much?

4. Poor Gut Health – Unlike OLIPOP, most soda companies aren’t partnering with leading microbiome researchers and spending years formulating a gut-healthy beverage. A quick look at the back label of the leading soda brands will reveal a whole lot of sugar, food coloring, and artificial ingredients.

1. These non-nutritive ingredients do very little to support the healthy bacteria living in your gut.
2. And your gut impacts everything from your immune health to your digestion to your cognitive functions.
3. These high levels of sugar can cause intestinal inflammation and lower the diversity of your gut microbiota, increasing your risk for infection and illness.11 And artificial sweeteners aren’t any better.

Like sugar, artificial sweeteners can alter your gut microbiota and lead to glucose intolerance. This increases your risk of several metabolic health concerns.15 16 17 Some of the most popular artificial sweeteners used in sodas, like saccharin, neotame, aspartame, acesulfame-K, and sucralose, are among the biggest culprits we know about when it comes to the possible alteration of your gut microbiota.15

Will 3 drinks a day damage your liver?

Having 2 to 3 alcoholic drinks every day or binge drinking can harm your liver. Binge drinking is when you drink more than 4 or 5 drinks in a row. If you already have a liver disease, you should stop drinking alcohol. There is no safe amount of alcohol for people with any type of alcoholic liver disease.

Is soda worse for your liver than beer?

Is Beer or Soda Better For You? – Bayway CrossFit This was not the planned blog post for this week, but after talking with someone from the gym about their soda addiction, I decided I needed to write this because there could be more of you out there. I believe that people should not drink sodas at all, and drink alcohol in moderation. Seems silly being in the health and fitness industry but below are few comparisons that may get you to see it the same way. First, let’s start with the health benefits of these products: Sodas have ZERO health benefits.

They contain zero vitamins or minerals. Beer has some of these, but not enough to provide a substantial amount of micronutrients to stop taking your vitamins. In 2010 the American Heart Association released guidelines stating that there are benefits to having one twelve ounce beer each night. I have yet to find one that says this for sodas.

In the average lagger, there are fewer calories than in a twelve-ounce soda and most light beers have about fifty fewer calories per twelve ounce can. Beer has zero grams of sugar while sodas could have forty or more in each can. If we are counting calories and sugar, I would say someone who drinks two beers a day is much less likely to get a beer belly at the same rate as someone who drinks two sodas a day.

The second comparison of beer and sodas is a quick one: If you need to clean the corrosion off your car battery you don’t pour beer on it first, you pour a coke on it.The third comparison is addictive properties:

Both beer and sugary sodas have been shown to cause a release of endorphins in the brain. The more you drink of either, the more that is released. The more you drink, the more you build up a tolerance to it and the more you will need to drink in order to get the release of endorphins again. The fourth comparison is linked to diseases: Someone who is an avid soda drinker would think that beer is the ‘more evil’ one of the two in this comparison, but it’s not. When I googled ‘diseases linked to alcohol’ and ‘diseases linked to sugar’ many of the same diseases appeared on both sides including liver health, heart health and kidney function.

• But the major player from sugar deaths did not appear on the alcohol list at all, and that is Diabetes.
• The primary fight against big soda is because, according to the American Diabetes Association, 40% of all death certificates have diabetes listed on them.
• This is a significant player in millions of deaths each year, and sugar has been directly linked to them.

One soda a day can increase your chances of diabetes by 22% according to a European study done with 350,000 people from eight different countries. The final comparison is warning labels: Beer and alcohol products are required to have a warning label on them letting everyone who drinks it know that they are drinking a product that can cause health issues and impair your senses.

Sodas are not required by federal law to have this same warning label on them, but in some cities and states they have or are trying to pass laws where this will be the case. Just based of some basic research into the health benefits of sugar one could conclude that a drink that contains over three tablespoons of sugar each should include a warning label on it in every state and every country.

Beer and alcohol companies do not advertise to children because of the legal drinking age and their warning label. Sodas do not have a warning label (yet) but have made a promise not to advertise to children. Seems a little strange? In comparison, both are bad for you.

People have this thought that because you can buy sodas at any age, they are safer for you. Both of these products will kill you at some point. Both will leave you worse after you start them. Both are dangerous; end of story. If you can avoid both for the rest of your life, you will live a longer healthier life.

HOWEVER WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO IS UP TO YOU. YOU MAKE THESE DECISIONS FOR YOURSELF. BUT, IF I WERE TO ASK YOU, I WOULD EVEN SAY PLEAD WITH YOUPLEASE DO NOT GIVE YOUR CHILDREN SODAS. DO A QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH ON A FEW STUDIES OF WHAT SODAS ARE DOING TO KIDS. Richard AndrewsCF-L2 : Is Beer or Soda Better For You? – Bayway CrossFit

Is alcohol or sugar worse for your liver?

If you’ve been following the nutrition news lately, you may have noticed that the question of sugar toxicity is a somewhat polarising one. Everyone agrees that a massive reduction in fructose (i.e. fruit sugar) does a lot to slow the dramatic rise in obesity and diseases that cluster around the metabolic syndrome.

Sugar may be more metabolically harmful than simply failing to provide nutrients (if you’ll recall, the “empty calorie” hypothesis is the reason one should limit sugar is because calories from sugar are not as valuable as those from, say, protein). Long-term chronic exposure to sugar, similar to alcohol, can be intoxicating and increase risks for diseases that we never used to see in youth prior to 1980. As such, sugar should be regulated in a manner commensurate with the damage it causes, possibly as vehemently as alcohol or smoking. Evidence is emerging that sugar is addictive and more research needs to be invested in what’s going on chemically in the brain of obese vs lean individuals. Industry is capitalising on neuroscience and how cues in our food environment trigger overeating and addiction to drive sales.

Let’s address these points in order. Sugar toxicity: How does it all begin? Many studies on the link between sugar and increased risks of heart disease, metabolic syndromen, fatty liver disease or obesity are only describing a temporal association and not a cause-and-effect relationship.

Yet, the evidence is compelling in research studies: When consumed in high amounts and frequently, sugar can be considered a toxin. In the February 2 nd issue of the journal Nature, Dr Lustig and his colleagues argue that excessive consumption of fructose sugar, in particular, can cause many health problems including insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, hypertensio, hepatic dysfunction and, of course, the creation of addictive behaviours.

The many links between excess sugar and chronic disease are all exposed on SugarScience.org, a new website and product of Dr. Robert Lustig that uses graphics, videos and science on more than 8,000 independent studies on sugar and its role in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease and more.

For example, the site reads: “Over time, consuming large quantities of added sugar can stress and damage critical organs, including the pancreas and liver. When the pancreas, which produces insulin to process sugars, becomes overworked, it can fail to regulate blood sugar properly. Large doses of the sugar fructose also can overwhelm the liver, which metabolizes fructose.

In the process, the liver will convert excess fructose to fat, which is stored in the liver and also released into the bloodstream. This process contributes to key elements of the metabolic syndromen, including high blood fats or triglycerides, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and extra body fat in the form of a sugar belly.” All of this metabolic mayhem is a breeding ground for diseases afflicting a large part of the population today.

1. Two are of particular concern for Lustig: type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), that the youth are becoming increasingly susceptible to.
2. The two are actually very interrelated, as the toxicity of sugar is in fact primarily related to its hepatic metabolism, whereby it increases the amount of liver fat and this is one established risk factor for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Case in point, a 2016 paper published in the Journal Nutrients, which looked at dietary habits that are primary contributors to increased hepatic fat content, found that high dietary fructose sugar is strongly associated with NAFLD and NAFLD-related diseases.

In contrast, and perhaps counterintuitively for somen, it also points out that high intakes of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) exert beneficial effects on NAFLD patients – Another blow to the low-fat dieting camp. And that’s not all the paper showed. The onset of NAFLD shares some strikingly similar characteristics with those seen in response to a higher-sugar diet, such as elevated insulin, subsequent insulin resistance, unbalanced lipid profile You name it.

The process by which organs fill up with visceral fat has been described in many studies. It goes something like this: A healthy person will store excess energy in their fat cells for easy access when required later. But, eventually it gets to the point where they cannot expand to accept any more energy.

• It is at this point that the fat tissue becomes insulin resistant.
• The good news is that insulin resistance will slow the expansion of our fat cells (the excess energy can’t get in as easily).
• The bad news is that the excess energy will be re-directed for storage into our liver, pancreas, heart, brain and other vital organs.

The parallel between sugar and ethanol One reason why many experts, like Lustig, thinks we should regulate sugar like alcohol lies in the fact that the metabolic effect of sugar, especially fructose sugar, is nearly identical to that of ethanol from drinking alcohol.

• In a recent interview to the website Business Insider, Lustig explains how a growing number of patients – including children – have fatty liver (usually a tell-tale sign of alcoholic liver disease) who rarely drink alcohol, but consume high amounts of sugar.
• As it turns out, sugar and alcohol are metabolised virtually identically in the liver.

You get alcohol from fermentation of sugar, so it makes sense that when you overload the liver with either one, you get the same diseases. Both cause problems from chronic toxicity, i.e., drinking/eating a lot of sugar over a long enough period of time.

The only difference is that alcohol is also an acute toxi, meaning it is possible to overdose on ethanol. Now, does the amount matter? Of course it does, sugar health risks are certainly dose-dependent and context-dependent. An insulin resistant person versus an insulin sensitive person won’t metabolise sugar in the same way.

What’s toxic to one person may not be toxic to the next. It’s true of most substances, including tobacco, alcohol, cocaine and heroin. If we were to define chronic toxicity, it is thought of as the ability of a substance to cause harmful effects over an extended period, usually upon repeated or continuous exposure.

• The point is much smaller doses, if taken repeatedly, are still toxic.
• Lustig is the first to acknowledge that fructose, and sugar at large, is harmful at the doses most people are consuming it today.
• Recommendations for upper limits of added sugar consumption are currently exceeded and by far.
• Our consumption of sugar is increasing at a staggering rate and we consumen, on average, about four times the amount of sugar today that we did some 40 years ago.

The advent of the low-fat craze is partly to blamen, as low-fat is almost ubiquitously synonymous with high-sugar. Going back to the comparison between fructose sugar and alcohol, if we were to put side-by-side the phenomena resulting from either, we would find, as Lustig did, that excessive consumption of fructose can cause many of the same health problems as alcohol (see table below). The figure speaks for itself and suggests that about two-thirds of health problems that afflicts a heavy drinker also afflicts a heavy consumer of fructose sugar. If after reading this you’re wondering how much sugar you can eat, it depends on how genetically susceptible you are to its effects and what you are optimising for — short-term pleasure or long-term health.

• For some people, eating ten apples a day causes no harm.
• For others, eating one apple a day causes harm.
• The goal should ultimately be to figure out what your “toxic” dose is and stay well below it.
• As stated by Gary Taubes in a great New York Times article, more research is necessary to establish at what dose sugar start becoming toxic.

This supposes longer intervention studies, as sugar can’t be regarded as a chronic toxin after one meal, but after 1,000 meals. So studies have to go on for significantly longer to be meaningful and currently few clinical trials of this kind are supported.

• The war on sugar: Have we found the winning strategy? How do you defeat obesity, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease? Just telling people to eat less and exercise more isn’t working.
• Forecasts suggest that three out of every four British men will be overweight or obese by 2030.
• Perhaps, just perhaps, we have ignored a whole ecosystem of issues – our patterns of eating and excess, our poisoned environment — that informs our well-being.

Put simply: removing sugar may not by itself halt the advancing flood. One obvious limitation on the fightback against the damage of sugar is the controversies and misinformation that bedevil the field of nutrition research. The public needs to be better informed about the science of how sugar impacts our health, but weaknesses in clinical trials and observational studies are failing us.

The problem is that the results of these studies, that mostly only establish associations and provide no evidence of causality, are helping identify priorities, guide public health planning, and inform strategies to alter dietary habits and improve health. Another constraint is that the government has lost credibility with the consumer after condoning the funding of research all the way back to the 1950s that took the blame off sugar, further poisoning nutrition science.

It’s also very difficult to get people to change their diet on a large scale over a long period of time. Proof is this study showing that even if you give people free counseling, advice and a free basket of healthy food every week, it won’t make much of a difference. Although the metabolic aspects of diet, such as changes in calorie expenditure and which fuels are providing calories is important, many experts like Lustig now believe that most of the story of obesity doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s mostly about why one chooses certain foods and what are the things in the food environment that are influencing these decisions.

And this is not taking place in the muscle or liver, but in the brain. Why is this important? Because there is a failure to understand the addictive nature of eating in obesity, and neither surgery nor junk food taxes alone can correct addictive eating in some people. One of the saddest effects of sugar overconsumption that Lustig, who runs the obesity clinic at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, noted is that sugar ramps up brain hormones that tell kids’ bodies they haven’t eaten enough, even as they overeat.

Research has, for example, linked dopamine – a reward neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more – to addictio, motivation, and more recently to obesity. Current evidence suggest that behaviours that release too much dopamine eventually leads to addictio, mostly because dopamine should be in balance with serotoni, the mirror “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more.

Kevin Hall, a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the NIH has studied in obese cohorts how this “dopamine effect” on pleasure centres in the brain can be triggered by food and how that may have an addictive effect overtime. Past studies using neuroimaging techniques showed that the number of dopamine receptors in the brain – the things that dopamine binds to in order to generate a signal – and where they’re located vary in people with addiction and those who are obese.

In his study, Hall used a procedure called a PET (positron emission tomography) scan, where a chemical is injected in the blood and goes to the brain where it binds to these dopamine receptors. One of the things that he and his team found was that there is a relationship between the binding of these dopamine receptors and key parts of the brain called the dorsal lateral striatum (DSL). One hypothesis in neuroscience is that people who have a large number of available receptors in these dopamine regions of the brain are more susceptible to how dopamine is shifting them towards habitual eating behaviour. And, as expected, Hall found that people who had a higher body fat had more dopamine receptors in this particular region of the brain than lean individuals.

• We know, for example, in animal models, that if you block dopamine activity, you can block the development of habits because addiction begins when dopamine moves away from the rewards areas of the brain to these habits areas in the DSL.
• Hall calls what fires these regions of the brain and motivate food intake surplus “opportunistic eating behaviour”, which can be thought of as cues in the environment like interpersonal influence, being bombarded with food industry marketing and so on.

The other part of Hall’s study that hasn’t come out yet investigates how these dopamine receptors are altered in the reduced carb versus reduced fat diet, as preliminary findings unsurprisingly indicate that they seem to be affected very differently.

All of these scientific discoveries around addictive behaviours and dopamine, like Hall’s, is something that the sugar industry is heavily invested into through the funding of research that helps develop products that are neurochemically addictive, It’s the rise of what’s called “neuromarketing.” Producers that make these foods study neurophysiology, evolutionary biology and how to make things addictive.

They use flavour combinations and pairings to engineer foods that are hyper-palatable and bypass the neuroregulation of appetite. In that sense, the population-level rise in obesity can be perceived as a natural response to this situation of constant temptation resulting from chemical neurotoxicity following exposure to certain foods.

And this in turn shapes our behaviours, behaviours that would later have serious consequences. How will this story end? If we’re worried about obesity, maybe it’s time to pay more attention to the environment that’s shaping it, a toxic food environment that is made more toxic by the constant stream of messages to eat more and eat often,

As for the answer to the question of whether sugar is as bad as Lustig claims, studies on longer-term outcomes of different diets are needed. It very well may be true that sugar, because of the unique way in which we metabolise it and at the levels we now consume it, triggers the process that leads to fatty liver, insulin resistance and all that follows.

Some will say that we should never demonise one nutrient. But when that one single nutrient is now in 80 percent of all foods, we do need to look at it. It’s pervaded our entire food supply and could indeed be toxic, but takes years to do damage. Until long-term studies are done, we won’t know for sure.

Barring that kind of study, we have to make the best decisions that we can given the current evidence. Everyone needs to decide how they want to interpret it and make personal choices around it. *** Sugar is not solely to blame for obesity and metabolic disorders, there is a host of other factors.

Can liver patients drink soda?

Medically Reviewed by Minesh Khatri, MD on January 17, 2022 Too much sugar isn’t just bad for your teeth. It can harm your liver, too. The organ uses one type of sugar, called fructose, to make fat. Too much refined sugar and high-fructose corn syrup causes a fatty buildup that can lead to liver disease. Some studies show that sugar can be as damaging to the liver as alcohol, even if you’re not overweight. Even if the label says “natural,” it may not be OK for you. For instance, some people take an herb called kava kava for menopause symptoms or to help them relax. But studies show that it can keep the liver from working right. That can lead to hepatitis and liver failure. The extra fat can build up in your liver cells and lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease ( NAFLD ). As a result, your liver may swell. Over time, it can harden and scar liver tissue (doctors call this cirrhosis). You are more likely to get NAFLD if you are overweight or obese, middle-aged, or have diabetes. You may be able to turn things around. Diet and exercise can stop the disease. Your body needs vitamin A, and it’s fine to get it from plants such as fresh fruits and vegetables, especially those that are red, orange, and yellow. But if you take supplements that have high doses of vitamin A, that can be a problem for your liver. Check with your doctor before you take any extra vitamin A because you probably don’t need it. Research shows that people who drink a lot of soft drinks are more likely to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Studies don’t prove that the drinks were the cause. But if you down a lot of sodas and have been meaning to cut back, this could be a good reason to switch what you sip. You’ve got a sore back, or a headache, or a cold, and you reach for a pain reliever. Be sure to take the right amount! If you accidentally take too much of anything that has acetaminophen – for instance, a pill for your headache and something else for your cold, and both have acetaminophen in it – it can harm your liver. Trans fats are a man-made fat in some packaged foods and baked goods. (You’ll see them listed as “partially hydrogenated” ingredients). A diet high in trans fats makes you more likely to gain weight. That’s not good for your liver. Check the ingredients list. Even if it says “0” grams of trans fat, it may still have a small amount, and that adds up. A doctor or nurse gets nicked by a needle they’ve used on a patient. Or people injecting illegal drugs share a needle. The needle isn’t the problem. It’s what’s on it. Hepatitis C can spread through blood. EVeryone should be tested at least once in a lifetime after the age of 18 years except in settings where the prevalence of HCV infection (HCV RNA‑positivity) is less than 0.1% You probably already know that drinking too much is bad for your liver. But you might not realize that “too much” can happen without you being an alcoholic or addicted to alcohol. It’s easy to drink more than you think. Many glasses can hold a lot more than one standard serving, which is 5 ounces of wine (that’s a little more than half a cup), 12 ounces of regular beer, or 1.5 ounces of liquor.

Which drink doesn t affect liver?

Which alcohol is easiest on the liver? – So, now on to the all-important question, which alcohol is easiest on the liver? The quick answer is, none of them. The reason is that the main liver-damaging ingredient in all types of alcohol is ethanol. It doesn’t matter which alcohol you chose, be it weak beer or grain alcohol,

• Ultimately, the main thing that matters when it comes to deciding which alcohol is easiest on your liver is the strength and volume of alcohol consumed.
• In the United States, a “standard drink” is defined as any beverage containing 0.6 fl oz or 14 grams of pure alcohol.
• That means 12 fl oz of 5% beer (a small can) has the same amount of alcohol as 1.5 fl oz of 40% vodka (a shot glass).

( 3 ) Therefore, drinking five cans of beer and 5 shots of vodka will put the same amount of alcohol-related pressure on your liver. Despite the volume of fluid from five cans of beer being a lot more than five shots. In summary : There is no type of alcohol that is easier on your liver.