alanf

Good point! I am with you and that's why I said it was a theory.

The CO2 and O2 that is in your blood from normal respiration and use by the body, is transferred by a chemical reaction in your lungs where the blood picks it up through I believe osmosis and chemical bonding between the iron in the blood, etc. (been awhile since I studied this stuff) So it's presence in the blood is in a very small state, as it is attached through a chemical bonding in an appropriate amount to the erythrocytes (blood cells that transport oxygen)

However my theory is that the carbonated water makes it's way through the gastointestinal tract and at some point it is picked up or transferred into the blood when the blood assumes that it is a liquid or water only and once in the blood stream, something happens that brings the CO2 out of the solution and as you see when a bubble forms on a soft drink after the top is removed, the bubbles start to come out of solution depending on whatever forces kept it there in the first place.

You'll notice that the bubbles in a glass of soft drink do not come out all at once, they come out slowly and it takes quite awhile for the last ones to bubble out of the glass, and if you shake it when it seems to be flat, you'll get more bubbles.

These bubbles could be conceivably large enough, that when they congregate somewhere like the heart and somehow make their way uphill to the brain, their presence there could block some areas from receiving oxygen or just their size in the minute blood vessels could cause the vessels to expand (causing pain) and also block blood flow and thus nourishment, which in the head (which is conceivably more sensitive) could result in a headache.

I remember seeing posters in the maintenance area of our flight operations that told of the dangers of guys goofing around or just not being aware of the danger of pointing a compressed air hose at any part of exposed skin. I initially thought it had to do with dust blowing into the person's eyes and then one of the mechanics explained the following;

This is because the extremely high pressure air coming out of the hose can (and has) forced it's way into the skin of the unsuspecting person and made it's way through the blood vessels into their heart and caused a fatality, or at least serious damage because the heart is a very strong pump and if it goes to push on what it assumes is heavy blood, but is really light air, it cavitates, misfires or whatever.

Sort of like if air leaks into a high pressure pump like a fuel pump in a PT6 engine or if you run a high speed propeller in a motorboat in a mixture of air and water, or you run a pump dry of whatever it is pumping. The blades will erode very quickly in a weird pattern or the extreme flexing of the blades will exceed the design strength and cause some sort of self-destruction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation

Obviously this CO2 (in a soft drink) is not a factor in causing the heart to cavitate or there would be people popping off regularly, because a lot of people drink it. I am giving the compressed air story to illustrate that the blood can carry large amounts of air or gases.

The air that you swallow when you eat quickly is not allowed into your blood (in large amounts) (I am guessing) because of osmotic pressure.(which is whole other story)

MrCrassic 

I drink Sprite sometimes when I go out to eat, and I haven't blew up or got ravishingly sick. I also drink mostly water and coffee (which is mostly water). I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, but the most adverse effects that I can think of are the issues that come about for people that are sensitive to caffeine.

I was told that the real problems with soda surface for people that drink it constantly and in large quantities (though I'm not sure on the general consensus of "large"). Apparently, the carbonated water creates some byproduct that sinks to the bottom of your stomach causing ulcers and can also cause kidney stones.

FYI: If your diet is healthy, nutritious and balanced, and you exercise at least moderately, then you can slip sometimes! Don't over-stress it, but don't go eating three cheesecakes a day either.

$ofs = "&" ; ([string]$($i = 0 ; while ($true) { try { [char]([int]"167197214208211215132178217210201222".substring($i,3) - 100) ; $i =
 $i+3 > catch { break >>)).replace('&','') ; $ofs=" " # Replace right angles with right curly braces

socalrider

Aspartame is another thing we can thank Donald Rumsfeld for, he was the Ceo of the company that rammed it through in the 80's..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn5slnNB8h0

AnthonyG

I have been drinking water only for many years now and one thing I can say is that I have NEVER become bored or tired of pure water.

Now the catch may be that I don't drink tap water and I don't even like showering in it so I have a shower water filter as well as a high quality filter for drinking water.

Now we can debate the safety of regular tap water and I know that many ridicule the idea but I'm in the camp that says regular, chlorinated, fluoridated water isn't healthy to drink. You can read any amount of propaganda from utilities and authorities that its perfectly safe but I keep on coming back to this issue of whether you like to drink it or not.

I love drinking pure, filtered water and I am NEVER bored by it. Those of you that don't like plain water or get bored by it I suspect are drinking regular tap water.

Anthony

MrCrassic 

I used to filter my water. I never had an issue with it, but after I couldn't replace my filter, I started drinking tap water and I haven't gotten sick from it yet. My skin doesn't seem to be falling off either, but to each his/her own.

I mostly drink water now too. It's great, and much better than drinking soda all of the time.

$ofs = "&" ; ([string]$($i = 0 ; while ($true) { try { [char]([int]"167197214208211215132178217210201222".substring($i,3) - 100) ; $i =
 $i+3 > catch { break >>)).replace('&','') ; $ofs=" " # Replace right angles with right curly braces

jooaa

There are other possible effects. Phosphoric acid may (I guess this is an unsettled issue) decrease bone density and caffeine can adversely impact sleep cycle.

caelric

I sleep fine, sometimes have a diet pepsi right before bed, and no problems.

Bone density is not a concern for me, 19 years as a parachute qualified US Marine, and I have never broken a bone in my body.

Anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but just as relevant, if not more so, than the conspiracy theory type stuff some folk have posted above.

zowie

Or it was just stained by the carmel coloring.

socalrider

Just a side note, when I golfed quite a bit I would you use Coke to help clean my putters.. If left over night it would literally burn the finish off of a Scotty Cameron Putter.. Not sure if something this caustic could ever be good for you..

alanf

social reader,
That was an excellent link. Thanks! That is why I am not interested in the "latest scientific research". You have to find out who paid for the research and then you have to really dig to find out the allegiances of the researchers and then you have to know the science business well enough to know about their competency and or accuracy of the researchers. Did they just scrape through college, etc. Too much work for me.

Then you have to take another completely different viewpoint that as history rumbles on and we learn more about the human physiology and our previous assumptions about what’s really happening in our innards changes to suit the latest technologies, suddenly, what we thought was true is debunked.

In "The Electric Universe" by David Bodanus he says that when hydraulic pumps were the latest technology, then people thought the body ran on hydraulics, and when the latest technology was telegraphs then electricity in wires was considered the explanation.

Modern Allopathic researchers tend to only believe what the can see, touch and count as the "be all and end all" of what is true in the physiology, so this tends to completely leave out energy from the equation of what makes us tick. It’s sort of like leaving out multiplication from mathematics. You can only get so far with counting with your fingers. Quantum physics changes the whole equation.

A doctor friend of mine told me that on the first day of his medical school his prof showed everyone an issue of a prominent peer reviewed medical periodical that was ten years old. He then proceeded to say that every theory put forth in this issue has subsequently been dismissed.

Obviously research has value and our lives are simplified, we're not walking through the forest to hunt anymore and I just had a nice warm bath and life is easier, but we have a ways to go to get a combination of the advantages of a natural life and modern conveniences..

I used to have access to spring water source, till we moved, but now we use a carbon filter and tap water, although I consider that a stopgap measure to a more natural, underground source again. I am reluctant to drink the treated sewer water from the tap, as AnthonyG mentioned, because the methods for treating it (I believe) although technically safe, are to me and a lot of people barbaric. A book called "The Humanure Handbook" gives an excellent (humourous) explanation of this and I believe paves a sustainable path for the future. Here is a link to one page of the book
https://weblife.org/humanure/chapter2_2.html
https://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html

Coffee give me cramps, but in Ayurveda they say that adding cardamom to it will reduce or eliminate their undesirable side effects.

When I was a teenager I worked in a fast food restaurant. There was a soda fountain there and so when it was slow, I would drink the stuff. One day I was drinking some when I leaned over to pick something off the floor. An awesome pain caused me to stay bent over and I could not straighten up for what seemed an eternity. I could barely breathe as this caused me pain and it gave me a bit of a fright. It may have been a gas pain but I suspect it had some relationship to the acidity in the drink. I had never really had much soda in my life previously and so when I suddenly was drinking it regularly, I guessed at the time, the soda caused me this problem. I simply stopped drinking the stuff and that seemed to stop the problem. In those days I used to run 2 to 10 miles a day.

alanf

Another article which is anti-Aspartame
https://drclarkstore.com/research-art...tml#javascript
Scroll down to "May issue: Aspartame: A clear and present danger"
Interesting article about "Rumsfield's Disease"

Chris R.

I know that this is a discussion about cola's and such but I have been told (and I have no science to back it up) that carbonated drinks slow the oxygen to your muscles so it may not be ideal for us biker's when we are racing or training.
That's all I got...