Fizzy Drinks Are Ageing Us As Much As Cigarette Smoking, Study Finds

Nevermind if the Diet Coke man is the hottest thing since Brad Pitt's cameo in Thelma and Louise.

Clever marketing tactics won't help cure the damaging effects of your fizzy drink habit.

New evidence from the University of California has revealed that carbonated drinks will not only help make you fat, they will also age you prematurely.

In a way that is comparable to a smoking habit.

Gulp.

Sugar Is Villian

We've known for a long time that sugary drinks are not great for our health.

And that "sugary drinks" don't JUST come in cans.

We revealed back in July this nugget of information about everyone's afvourite "healthy" snack - the smoothie!

Smoothies could make you fat

Most of us probably think that a smoothie is a pretty healthy snack. Plus, because it is a drink, most of us might not even consider that it contains calories. But it does. And as well as the calories, smoothies can also contain high amounts of sugar, with some smoothies having as much as 34g of sugar in a 250ml serving, which is about as much sugar as you’d find in a can of Coke. Shocking. If you don’t think sugar affects your waistline, think again. A study published in the British Medical Journal found that when we reduce our sugar intake we could potentially lose around two pounds. Up our intakes though and we could risk putting on around two pounds.

But this new piece of knowledge from Professor Elissa Epel of the University of California explains that the long term effects of carbonated sugary drinks could be way, waaaay worse.

Fizzy AND Sugary

A cross section of 5309 adults, between the ages of 20 years-old to 65 years-old, were monitored over a number of years - with every nutritional intake monitored.

The study looked closely at the effect that fruit juices, sugary carbonated drinks and diet carbonated drinks had on leukocyte telomeres - the protective case which prevents the ends of our chromasomes from deterioration.

The longer the length of the telomeres, the better.

Shorter telomeres are a marker of cellular ageing and has links with premature menopause, as well as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

And carbonated sugary drinks were associated with shorter telomeres.

In fact, a daily fizzy drink habit could accelerate the ageing of your cells by two years, which is comparable to a smoking habit!

Professor Epel labelled such drinks as "uniquely toxic to metabolism."

Uh oh.

If you're looking for a clever way to stave off your hunger pangs that DOESN'T involve a fizzy drink OR fruit juice, check out our article on learning to Silence The Afternoon Munchies!

[11 Clean Eating Tips Every Fit Woman Understands]

[Dr Oz Demonstrates The RIGHT Way To Pop A Spot]

How are you altering your daily habits to be more healthy? Let us know in the comments!