Soft drinks not only contain phosphorus, but also sugar and caffeine, all of which leach calcium from bone.
A study on teenagers showed that urinary calcium levels increased with the ingestion of the caffeinated drink. Urinary calcium excretion increased from after ingestion of the soft drink with both caffeine and sugar.
For children, increases in soft drink consumption can have serious health implications. Child obesity, to which soft drinks are known to contribute has been shown to lead t adult obesity, which itself is associated with many health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
It's important because the numbers of fat children are increasing significantly each year.
When they controlled for television viewing (a well-known factor in childhood obesity), physical activity and other dietary factors, soft drinks by themselves added extra risk for obesity.
The prevalence of overweight and its attendant health problems is clearly on the rise among American children.
Obesity rates have risen in tandem with soft drinks consumption and heavy consumption of soda pop have high calories intakes.
Currently, 22 percent of children age 2 to 5 years and 15 percent of children aged 6 or older are overweight.
These values are more than double the rates of overweight in the early 1970s.
For every additional glass of sugar-sweetened drink per day, the risk of obesity rose by 60 per cent.
High sugar beverage intake is linked worth fast food consumption because soft drinks are usually marketed and bundled with meal packages in fast food restaurants.
Twice as many children drank carbonated soft drinks if they had consumed fast foods on one of two survey days than if they had not consumed fast food.
Changing the children over to diet drinks reduced the chances of obesity by over a half.
With the booming epidemic in adult diabetes, tied back to childhood obesity, we need to do what we can to keep our kids' weight down without scaring them into anorexia.
Most experts say the best techniques are to increase exercise, reduce television viewing and probably reduce time at computers - and now perhaps replacing sugar-loaded drinks with diet products.
Soft drinks and health of children
