The infographic goes on to detail the drink’s effect through the time it starts to leave the body.
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A new graphic compiled by The Renegade Pharmacist, a blog run by a former UK pharmacist, shows how a single can of Coke affects your body within an hour of its intake.
After 45 minutes, the body ups a person’s dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centres of the brain, which is physically the same way heroin works, and after an hour the caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play.
Thanks to the flashy packaging, sweet flavour and your own cravings, you’ve just consumed nearly your entire day’s recommended dose of sugar.
After 20 minutes, the body’s blood sugar spikes giving an insulin burst and the liver responds by turning sugar into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment.). And while we’re for the most part okay with caffeine-it can do some good for your workouts, actually-it’s worth asking exactly why sugar hits your system so hard. (Do you get that vicious cycle that’s happening?) Your brain’s adenosine receptors block preventing drowsiness (otherwise you’d probably collapse). Apparently the high levels of sugar and articifical sweeteners make you excrete calcium. They cause you to use the restroom, and in turn flush away calcium, magnesium and zinc your body needs. The only reason you don’t puke it up that sugar overload is because the phosphoric acid keeps it down.
Almost 25 percent of Americans drink soda on a regular basis, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and both experts say that’s a problem. “I did a presentation all about cholesterol and statins that is one of the most viewed on YouTube on this subject and gives all the evidence for sugar being one of the main causes of heart disease, rather than saturated fat and high cholesterol which we have all been led to believe”, he was quoted as saying. The reason you don’t throw up all that sugar is because the drink is balanced with phosphoric acid.
We’ve all been told that cold drinks (popularly called soft drinks in India), are bad for your health. It’s only once this storage is “full” that the body stores the glucose as fat, Mangieri said.
But Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, tells Yahoo Health that the impact of soda on your bones and teeth is tied more to regularly drinking the fizzy stuff. My first advice to them would be to do a simple swap, replacing fizzy drinks with water with fresh lemon or lime juice.
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My overall assessment from this exercise is that when you are forced to think about the physiological aspect of going on to process that can of soda, it certainly makes you wonder if it was worth drinking (especially in light of the aforementioned ice cream restriction I’ll be imposing on myself tonight).
