Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres

BarbaraHudson writes Those free soft drinks at your last start-up may come with a huge hidden price tag. The Toronto Sun reports that researchers at the University of California — San Francisco found study participants who drank pop daily had shorter telomeres — the protective units of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes in cells — in white blood cells. Short telomeres have been associated with chronic aging diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. The researchers calculated daily consumption of a 20-ounce pop is associated with 4.6 years of additional biological aging. The effect on telomere length is comparable to that of smoking, they said. "This finding held regardless of age, race, income and education level," researcher Elissa Epel said in a press release.

Comments

Overly broad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they be a little more specific as to what it is that's in the soda that is causing this?

Re:Overly broad?

[Teresita]

Next they'll go, "People who consume quantities of glucose in Snickers bars and donuts equivalent to drinking a bunch of soda pop daily also have diabetes and short telemeres. Never mind!"

Re:Overly broad?

[ColdWetDog]

Can they be a little more specific as to what it is that's in the soda that is causing this?

Nope, it's only an observation. No causation at all. And, of course, without any useful info from TFA, one can't tell if this is just another crap study done by some medical student or something with a degree of actual thought behind it. Off to see if the 'American Journal of Public Health' is accessible.

Re:Overly broad?

[Dzimas]

From the study abstract: "After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05). No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length."

More: http://ajph.aphapublications.o...

Re:Overly broad?

[CanarDuck]

A p-value of 0.04? This is a rather meager statistical significance. Mark me skeptical until the study has been reproduced independently.

For all I know they might have been looking at a lot of different nutrition factors and only reported those which appeared significant after the experiment (obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/882/ )

Re:Overly broad?

[Curunir_wolf]

Can they be a little more specific as to what it is that's in the soda that is causing this?

You think a beverage that can be used to degrease objects is healthy ? Coca-Cola is about as effective a degreaser as you can find.

It's really good at cleaning stubborn water stains on toilets and sinks, too.

Re:Overly broad?

[ArmoredDragon]

You think a beverage that can be used to degrease objects is healthy ?
Coca-Cola is about as effective a degreaser as you can find.

Not only is that stupidly wrong, (it just so happens mythbusters actually found that while it can remove rust, it doesn't remove grease) but it's also meaningless.

Alcohol is by far more effective for degreasing, yet drinking it in moderation is proven to be healthier than not drinking it at all.

Re:Overly broad?

[AthanasiusKircher]

I have never seen any study suggesting that, except the single widely ridiculed Yale study. Not surprising given how nearly identical sucrose and HFCS are in the gut.

Yeah, most of the HFCS criticism is built on "natural foods" lore and wacko hysteria about chemicals. It *could* be that HFCS is worse than some other sugars, but the vast majority of studies have shown no significant difference in response to HFCS vs. sucrose.

Just to be clear what we're talking about here, HFCS is not the same as pure fructose, and a lot of the lore about HFCS compares studies on fructose with sucrose or other things, rather than HFCS. Commercial HFCS is generally either 42% or 55% fructose, and almost all glucose otherwise. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a molecule that breaks down in the first stages of digestion to 50% fructose and 50% glucose -- so, as the parent said, they are basically identical in most of digestion. (It's called "high fructose" corn syrup, by the way, because it's much higher than normal corn syrup, which has very little fructose. But acting like pure fructose and HFCS are the same thing in studies is highly misleading.)

Also, for the natural foods buffs, please note that honey is mostly fructose and glucose in almost the same concentration as HFCS, so if HFCS is bad for you, "natural" honey is probably not a solution to this problem.

For further details, here's a link to a recent (2013) metastudy that summarizes what is known. From the abstract:

[A] broad scientific consensus has emerged that there are no metabolic or endocrine response differences between HFCS and sucrose related to obesity or any other adverse health outcome. This equivalence is not surprising given that both of these sugars contain approximately equal amounts of fructose and glucose, contain the same number of calories, possess the same level of sweetness, and are absorbed identically through the gastrointestinal tract. Research comparing pure fructose with pure glucose, although interesting from a scientific point of view, has limited application to human nutrition given that neither is consumed to an appreciable degree in isolation in the human diet. Whether there is a link between fructose, HFCS, or sucrose and increased risk of heart disease, metabolic syndrome, or fatty infiltration of the liver or muscle remains in dispute with different studies using different methodologies arriving at different conclusions.

In general, our dietary issues are probably a result of excess sugar consumption in general. Switching from HFCS to cane sugar is probably not a significant improvement unless you simultaneously decrease overall sugar consumption.

Re:Overly broad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fructose is a problem only if you get too much. Honey is not a problem to the same extent - it has much more taste and you get sick if you try to match someone's fructose consumption with honey. Most foodstuffs are bad if you eat "way too much" of them. Even completely natural stuff - but that doesn't happen as often. Natural food satiates, and you stop eating. Heavily processed food sell better, they don't satiate and people keep eating. You getting fat is a side effect the corporations can live with - and then they sell you a dieting plan for even more profit.

Captcha: unfair

Re:Overly broad?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Troll much?

I normally wouldn't even bother to respond to this, but I just want to be sure no mods are confused.

And here's another study that's not from Yale and doesn't use a red herring to confuse people.

And yet that's precisely what you are doing: introducing a red herring, actually the specific one I addressed in my post, namely:

HFCS != pure fructose

Your study is about consumption of pure fructose. Metabolism of fructose by itself has been shown in numerous studies to be very different from how human metabolism deals with a mixture of sugars, particularly the 50/50 mixture of fructose and glucose found in honey, HFCS, and sucrose (the latter after the one main bond in sucrose is broken up very early in digestion).

And yes, eating a lot of fructose by itself seems to do weird things to metabolism. But, ya know, mixtures make a difference.

What gives you two away as shills is that you use strong, unscientific words.

Yes, "shill" isn't a strong word or anything. Look -- you have one study that's not even on the substance in question. I referred to a metastudy which considered a multitude of research on the actual topic and talked about the current scientific consensus.

I think HFCS is bad, but mainly because its use is propped up by crappy agricultural policy that supports growing too much corn for no apparent reason other than stupid lobbying. I also think HFCS consumed in excess is bad, just like consuming too much sucrose or honey or whatever.

If you know how to use PubMed, then you can't play up ignorance as an excuse.

Funny, given your ignorance of the actual substance to be studied seems to have determined your choice of citations.

Go tell your bosses at Coca-Cola or wherever that we're not buying it.

Yeah, the overall message of my previous post was -- excess sugar consumption in general is bad for you, i.e., even the Coke with cane sugar is crap, even if it doesn't have HFCS. I obviously must be a shill for an industry trying to sell sugary products with my whole "we need to consume less sugar" posts....

Cheers!

Re:Overly broad?

[v1x]

And here is the author's disclosure from the article, available on PubMedCentral: "Author disclosures: J. M. Rippe, consulting fees from ConAgra Foods, PepsiCo International, Kraft Foods, the Corn Refiners Association, and Weight Watchers International." Still think the study is credible?

Re:Overly broad?

[Anonymous Coward]

HFCS is bad because it's associated, causally, with the over-sweetening of processed foods in general.

Take Yoplait, for instance. The top-selling yoghurt brand in the US. In the US version, according to its own label, the product is 16% sugar. The same product sold in the UK is 11% sugar.

Wonder Bread? 6% sugar. Warburtons (top selling UK sliced loaf)? 2-3%.

What you should really be asking yourself is "Why has the (particularly lower-class) American palate been educated, over decades, to crave oversweetened crap?" And the answer to that would involve a solid guest appearance by farmers' lobbies pushing a market for HFCS.

Re:Overly broad?

[Artifakt]

The 40 to 55% of HFCS that isn't Fructose is Glucose, which triggers insulin production immediately when it reaches the small intestine and is transported into the bloodstream before the insulin reaches it - Insulin is then needed to transport the glucose out of the bolldstream and into muscles and other tissues. Sucrose has to be cleaved first into glucose and only starts triggering insulin production after cleavage by other enzymes. This means, qat the very least, that Sucrose gets farther into the intestine before triggering insulin production, and that the rate of production is limited by the rate at which the sucrose is split and not the much faster rate at which glucose enters the bloodstream. I really don't see how you can call those two processes identical. Note I'm not saying that its been proved the differences in how high and low insulin levels and blood sugar levels get necessarily means there's a difference in health consequences, but its certainly not impossible just because of the fact both forms of sugar get to the same organ before digestion. And what about the part that is Fructose? That's certainly dealt with separately.

Re:Overly broad?

[duck_rifted]

Yes, anybody who cites peer reviewed research to disagree with you is a troll; especially when you tried to give the impression that the research doesn't exist.

The overall message of your previous post was that the HFCS lore and "wacko hysteria". So, you basically begin by calling anybody who disagrees with you a "wacko" and conclude by calling anybody who provides counter-citations a "troll". Do you have any arguments that don't begin and end with insulting those who disagree with you?

An actual troll (unlike your use of the term) is somebody who appeals to emotion for negative effect, for sadistic enjoyment or for manipulation. You are, by definition, a troll. Though I get that the term is bastardized to the point that it doesn't mean anything these days.

Metastudies are bullshit. Unless they consider ALL peer-reviewed literature on the topic, they're just a fancy way of cherry-picking to make an idea look more credible. Nobody with any academic training in science takes metastudies seriously because they're nothing more than over-glorified book reports.

Re:Overly broad?

[TheCarp]

The real problem is not the deamonization of Fructose but that the "processed" vs "natural" red herring is being used to ignore that sucrose is processed by the body into fructose and glucose. Meaning the body turns sugar into the exact same sort of mixture as HFCS. So in reality, as bad as HFCS is, sucrose is JUST AS BAD.

That said, I can't speak to this current study of telomeres but there is plenty of mechanism of action known for fructose. Fructose (unlike glucose) is processed exclusively in the liver, through many of the same pathways as alcohol.

Whether bound into a sucrose molecule or free floating in an HFCS mixture, 90% of fructose is processed int he liver (the rest is just excreted). The liver makes a number of things out of it, including hormones that suppress feelings of fullness (causing you to eat measurably more), but it also makes some of the worst kinds of cholesterol, VLDLs.

But you are right, the natural vs processed comparison is kind of bunk, especially when its "processed natural" anyway. The only natural vs processed argument that makes any sense is this: In nature sugar is found with fiber. Just try eating anywhere NEAR the sugar in a soda by eating apples or sugar cane....and then try doing it with a full meal. Good luck.

Pressing apples into juice....is processing. If you think of processing as primarily "Removing fiber from food" then it makes a lot more sense. In the end that is mainly what a lot of processing does. It removes the main constituent of food that limits how much and how fast we can eat.

Then to top it all off, with the "low fat" kick, they then remove the fat as well, which makes the food taste reminicent of cardboard, so to fix that, they add sugar. Its like an assault from all sides.... remove both fat and fiber, both things that moderate apetite and fullness, and replace with sugar, which suppresses fullness and gets turned into the worst kinds of cholesterol.

Soda Pop?

[albinobluerhino]

Does this mean coke is ok?

Re:Cumulative? How about other quantities?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have your stereo?

Research Paper Link

[Guppy]

1) What is the name of the paper?

Found it: http://ajph.aphapublications.o...
"Soda and Cell Aging: Associations Between Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Healthy Adults From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys"

Objectives. We tested whether leukocyte telomere length maintenance, which underlies healthy cellular aging, provides a link between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and the risk of cardiometabolic disease.

Methods. We examined cross-sectional associations between the consumption of SSBs, diet soda, and fruit juice and telomere length in a nationally representative sample of healthy adults. The study population included 5309 US adults, aged 20 to 65 years, with no history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, from the 1999 to 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Leukocyte telomere length was assayed from DNA specimens. Diet was assessed using 24-hour dietary recalls. Associations were examined using multivariate linear regression for the outcome of log-transformed telomere length.

Results. After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05). No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length.

Conclusions. Regular consumption of sugar-sweetened sodas might influence metabolic disease development through accelerated cell aging. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 16, 2014: e1–e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302151)

Re:Not a surprise, but is it just one ingredient?

[Guppy]

Sodium benzoate

My money is on the sugar/syrup itself, acting through the insulin-like growth factor system. There is substantial evidence that decreased IGF activity lengthens lifespan and reduces cancer risk, while increased activity drives increased cell-division activity and apoptosis.

Link to the study.

[DeadDecoy]

Here's a link to the study: study. They performed a cross-sectional study across some 5000 adults, looking at the effect of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), non-carbonated SSBs, diet soda, and fruit juices. They adjusted for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, and found that SSBs are correlated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04); fruit juice with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05), and no difference for diet sodas and non-carbonated SSBs.

I'm not sure how to interpret the results, as the study does not explain what the effect size is, or how impactful it is to general health. If there are any biologists in the crowd who can explain this, that would be super helpful.

Re:Link to the study.

[LordKronos]

No difference from the SSBs, or no difference from the fruit juice?

Neither. Read that sentence again, and I think it's pretty clear they are comparing all 4 to a baseline level (not sure what that is or how they get it). Think of it like:
basline = x
carbonated SSBs = x-1
fruit juice = x + 1
non-carbonated SSBs = x
diet carbonated SSBs = x

And just to be certain I am interpreting it right, I took the 15 seconds (literally, that's how long it took me) that you couldn't to click the link, skim the 1 page summary, and find: "No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length."

Re:'Regardless of... income and education level' ?

[AthanasiusKircher]

My bullshit meter always starts kicking into life when the hyperbole starts flowing, like the reading comprehension or random amount of payment received having a causative effect on the function of an organic process.

Well, the other things that are mentioned here were age and race, which could conceivably have biological differences that could have an effect.

I suspect that income and education level could be relevant here as a proxy for other dietary trends. People with higher incomes tend to eat better quality food overall than poor people. People with higher education levels also tend to make different dietary choices (and are probably more likely to seek out more "natural" foods or whatever the current research is pointing toward).

So, it's not so much that these aspects are causative as that they are indicative of perhaps a wider variety of potential dietary choices. This study seems to be based on general survey data, so it's not clear that they could rule out various confounding factors, though I'd have to read the study to know for certain.

Showing the trend is consistent is at least a step toward confronting a rather obvious objection that could come up if they only looked at poor folks whose diet is already likely to have a bunch of bad junk in it (and who probably tend to consume the most soda). If they see the same effect in rich, educated folks who drink soda, then it may not be a general "poor disease" issue. (Medical studies have often been plagued by these problems if they only have subjects who are not representative of the general population.)

I'm just guessing here, but that's one reason I could imagine for mentioning this.

Sugar only - not diet

[Animats]

The actual study only applies to sugar-sweetened drinks.

Re:'Regardless of... income and education level' ?

[blueg3]

They generally don't know that it's an organic process without controlling for those factors. You can't shove a microscope up someone's ass and just observe why a particular diet is having a particular effect.

Remember how people always like to harp on how correlation is not causation? Well, it's said too often and too zealously, but it's still true. One of the most important lessons is that you need to control for confounding factors, or the effect you observe could simply be a correlation. It's very, very hard to control for the entire set of a human's behavior, though -- which is what you'd want to do in a classic, traditional experiment.

There are a handful of confounding factors that are constantly problems -- they correlate with tons of things. Any good study about humans will control for them. Income and education level are two of them. So you will always see a paper controlling for these and, if they find an interesting effect, you will see a statement about how the effect is independent of income and education level -- because if that wasn't true, it's not a very valuable finding.

Re:Telomeres, tiny 'hairs' that split DNA for dupi

[ArmoredDragon]

I highly doubt it's the carbonation. Carbonation is literally just CO2 compressed into the water. Your body not only already has a large quantity of CO2, but depends on it as part of your blood's buffering solution for maintaining a specific PH level. If there's too much CO2 in your blood, your kidneys will simply remove it without consequence.

Well, that is not the only reason they go down

[houghi]

My Great aunt, who donated her body to Science (Also in an Open Source way(1)) never drank any Cola, yet they were still way down when she died at the age of 115.

A search on van andel telomeres will give more detail. I have the study somewhere around here, but am not able to find it just now.

(1) Not only did she donated her body to science, she wanted the science to be used for people to learn AND have her name linked to it. To be honest, she thought she would end up on a shelf somewhere after they cut her up. She never thought it would result in so much results in research.

Also because of her, they now have proof that alzheimers is not a given with old age thus a solution is at least possible. There were no traces of Alzheimers found anywhere.

Re:Not a surprise, but is it just one ingredient?

[MorePower]

I think the problem is that 2 different anti-HFCS campaigns reached the public conscience at about the same time.

One was the Passover Coke crowd, they were complaining that sucrose tastes better than HFCS in Coca-Cola. They were calling for sucrose to replace HFCS for taste (and nostalgia) reasons.

The second was the HFCS is causing obesity crowd, who were against HFCS because it was being added to everything, even stuff you wouldn't expect to be sugary. They were really calling for an end to adding sugar to everything, HFCS just happened to be the type of sugar that was being added. Their point was not that HFCS was somehow worse than sucrose, but rather that HFCS was AS BAD as sucrose (which you should only be eating as an occasional treat). They wanted the HFCS (and any other added sugars) removed from food and not replaced with anything.

These 2 movements collided in the public consciousness and led to people thinking "HFCS makes you fat, and it should be replaced by sucrose."

Re:Telomeres, tiny 'hairs' that split DNA for dupi

[ArhcAngel]

Consuming CO2 rapidly, as happens when drinking carbonated beverages, leads to stomach expansion. The stomach is capable of increasing in size to accommodate a large meal but if the practice is habitual the stomach will actually grow in size permanently. There is a nerve where the esophagus meets the stomach that triggers when the stomach is full. When triggered it tells the brain to stop eating (you are no longer hungry). Studies have linked an enlarged stomach to overeating and thus obesity. So while it may not have a direct link to obesity there is evidence it may be indirectly linked.

Re:You keep using that word... "basically"...

[itzly]

Your calculation is a bit off. The 55% fructose content of HFCS is by weight, not by moles. Density of fructose is 1.67, while density of glucose is 1.54, so the HFCS-55 actually contains 50.7% fructose and 49.3% glucose by moles. This is almost the same as sucrose.