According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around half of the US population drink sugary beverages on any given day, with consumption of these drinks highest among teenagers and young adults.
There are approximately 10 teaspoons of added sugar in a single can of cola.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommend consuming no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar daily, meaning drinking just one serving of cola a day could take us well above these guidelines.
As such, it is no surprise that sugary drink consumption is associated with an array of health conditions. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, people who drink 1-2 cans of sugary beverages daily are 26% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and last month, Medical News Today reported on a study claiming 184,000 global deaths each year are down to sugary drink consumption.
Now, an infographic created by British pharmacist Niraj Naik – based on research by health writer Wade Meredith – shows the damage a 330 ml can of Coca-Cola can do to the body within 1 hour of consumption.
According to Naik, the intense sweetness of Coca-Cola as a result of its high sugar content should make us vomit as soon as it enters the body. However, the phosphoric acid in the beverage dulls the sweetness, enabling us to keep the drink down.
Blood sugar levels increase dramatically within 20 minutes of drinking the Cola, explains Naik, causing a burst of insulin.
The liver then turns the high amounts of sugar circulating our body into fat.
Within 40 minutes, the body has absorbed all of the caffeine from the Cola, causing a dilation of pupils and an increase in blood pressure.
By this point, the adenosine receptors in the brain have been blocked, preventing fatigue.
Five minutes later, production of dopamine has increased – a neurotransmitter that helps control the pleasure and reward centers of the brain.
According to the infographic, the way Coca-Cola stimulates these centers is comparable to the effects of heroin, making us want another can.
An hour after drinking the beverage, a sugar crash will begin, causing irritability and drowsiness.
In addition, the water from the Cola will have been cleared from the body via urination, along with nutrients that are important for our health.
A study of over 87,000 documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests has revealed a contract mechanism that could allow Coca-Cola to “quash” findings from some of the health research it funds at public universities in the US and Canada.
The study, published today in the Journal of Public Health Policy, identified several clauses in legal documents that give the company early sight of any findings, combined with the right to “terminate without reason” and walk away with the data and intellectual property.
Taken together, these clauses could suppress “critical health information”, and indeed may have done so already, according to the study’s authors. Much of the research Coca-Cola supports is in the fields of nutrition, physical inactivity and energy balance.
The authors argue that the clauses contravene Coca-Cola’s commitments to transparent and “unrestricted” support for science, which came after criticism of the opaque way some major food corporations fund health research.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Bocconi, and US Right to Know, call on corporate funders to publish lists of terminated studies.
They say scientists should publish agreements with industry to reassure the public that findings are free from influence.
“It is certainly true that the contracts we have found allow for unfavourable developments or findings to be quashed prior to publication,” said lead author Dr. Sarah Steele, a policy researcher from Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies.
“Coca-Cola have declared themselves at the forefront of transparency when it comes to food and beverage giants funding health research.
In fact, our study suggests that important research might never see the light of day and we would never know about it.
“We are already hearing accusations from experts in nutrition that the food industry is copying tactics from big tobacco’s playbook.
Corporate social responsibility has to be more than just shiny websites stating progressive policies that get ignored.”
Consumption of high calorie, low nutrient food and drink is believed to be a major factor in the childhood obesity epidemic.
Last year, the UK government introduced a “sugar tax” on many soft drinks, including Coca-Cola’s flagship product.
US Right to Know, a non-profit consumer and public health research group, submitted 129 FOI requests between 2015 and 2018 relating to academics at North American institutions who received Coca-Cola funding.
The research team combed through the vast tranche of resulting documents and discovered five research agreements made with four universities: Louisiana State University, University of South Carolina, University of Toronto and the University of Washington.
The funded work includes “energy flux and balance” studies and research on beverage intake during exercise.
Coca-Cola’s own transparency website declares that scientists retain full control over their research and the company has no right to prevent publication of results.
However, while contracts show Coca-Cola does not control day-to-day conduct, the company retains various rights throughout the process.
These include the right to receive updates and comment on findings prior to research publication, and the power to terminate studies early without reason.
The documents yielded by the FOI requests contained no firm examples of Coca-Cola suppressing unfavourable research, although the study authors say “what is important is that the provision exists”.
All documents relating to the contracts are now accessible on the US Right to Know website.
Emails show one scientist expressing uncertainty over his study termination (“…they have not communicated with us in several months”) and concern over intellectual property.
Another scientist is seen arguing that his contract is “very restrictive for an ‘unrestricted grant'”.
“These contracts suggest that Coke wanted the power to bury research it funded that might detract from its image or profits,” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of US Right to Know.
“With the power to trumpet positive findings and bury negative ones, Coke-funded science seems more like an exercise in public relations.”
The researchers acknowledge that the food and beverage industry may be updating research contracts in line with new public commitments, but without seeing those contracts it is hard to know.
They say their Coca-Cola case study suggests a continued lack of transparency that should be remedied with “hard” information on funding, rather than relying on self-reported conflicts of interest.
“Journals should require authors of funded research to upload the research agreements for studies as appendices to any peer-reviewed publication,” said Steele.
“The lack of robust information on input by industry and on studies terminated before results are published, makes it impossible to know how much of the research entering the public domain reflects industry positions.”
More information:Journal of Public Health Policy, DOI: 10.1057/s41271-019-00170-9 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41271-019-00170-9
Provided by University of Cambridge
