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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
These people were drinking a few cans of soda a day. Here's what happened to their health when they gave it up.
While soda used to be a staple of the American diet, consumption of the fizzy drink in the U.S. has consistently fallen for more than a decade. Americans are currently drinking 25% less soda than they did in 2000. Of course, we're talking about traditional sodas here. Data shows that probiotic and prebiotic sodas are becoming more popular each year, but these tend to have significantly less sugar and additives than their old-school predecessors. A wealth of research over the past two decades has shown that traditional sodas aren't great for your health. 'Regular soda displaces healthier calories because it takes up some room in the stomach, but it also adds a significant amount of calories to someone's diet without any healthful benefit,' Dana Ellis Hunnes, senior dietitian at UCLA Medical Center and assistant professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, tells Yahoo Life. Regular soda is also packed with sugar. A 20-ounce bottle of Coke contains 240 calories and 65 grams of sugar, for example — that's more than the recommended daily allowance for most people. 'In excess, that sugar can increase your weight, visceral fat and your overall risk for chronic disease — diabetes, heart disease and fatty-liver disease,' Hunnes says. Those realities are pushing some people to give up soda altogether. When that happens, how is their health affected? Yahoo Life talked with with four people who decided to ditch soda for a range of reasons. Here's what we learned. Mina Grace Ward would have six cans of soda or more a day before she finally stopped. 'My mornings always began with a chilled can of Coke for my commute,' she tells Yahoo Life. Her personal office fridge, which held 12 cans of soda, had to be restocked every other day. 'I'd go through a can like it was going out of style,' she says. 'I'd even pop a can at night while going through work emails.' But Ward eventually gave up drinking soda when, a decade ago, she was diagnosed with Graves' disease, an autoimmune condition that causes rapid weight loss, hair loss, high blood pressure, insomnia and more. 'I was sick and tired of feeling like a Mack truck ran me over every day,' she says. After Ward made other significant dietary changes, she started to feel better. 'Even though I continue to live with Graves' disease, I've been able to live with it in full remission for nearly seven years,' she says. 'That's a big deal.' Now she mostly drinks plain water. 'It's the most refreshing, hydrating and good-for-you beverage out there,' she says. Seth Goodman thought about giving up soda for years before he finally ditched the drink in 2018 for one of his New Year's resolutions. 'The choice to give up soda was really inspired by the health, time and financial benefits that I knew would come along with this choice,' the publicist tells Yahoo Life. 'While a single soda is relatively cheap, multiple a day or week add up and were impacting my finances.' Goodman drank soda regularly as a kid, and the habit continued into adulthood. 'This also included really going out of my way to get soda if I was craving it, more specifically Coke,' he says. 'Throughout the days, I would find myself having an urge for McDonald's Coke, leading to multiple trips in a single day.' He admits that it was difficult to avoid soda at first due to constant cravings. 'It took a lot of mental fortitude to resist the urge to drink soda,' he says. But once he stopped drinking soda, Goodman says he immediately noticed he had more energy. 'I was more motivated to move and do activities,' he says. 'It did take time to get past the sugar cravings, but I turned to gum as a way to fight that feeling of needing a soda. After a few weeks, it became natural to not want soda.' Marketing director Terry Wells decided to give up soda in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, she was drinking two sodas a day — either a Sprite or Orange Crush — although Wells says she would reach for ginger ale if she had an upset stomach. 'I realized during the early days of the COVID pandemic that I was gaining more weight than I wanted sitting home,' she tells Yahoo Life. 'I decided to give up my soda habit and drink more water.' Wells says that it took time, but her cravings for sugar subsided, and she dropped five pounds within three months. 'My husband and I also started walking and working out here at home, which we've continued to do five years later,' she says. Wells says she decided to stick with water, smoothies and chai to satisfy her sweet tooth. Now, when she wants something fizzy, Wells says she'll create soda water with her home machine and add fresh lemon and lime juice. Texas resident Bennett Barrier stopped drinking soda nearly a decade ago after becoming dehydrated at work. The turf installation company owner was working on a stadium when he felt lightheaded in the heat. 'I'd consumed three sodas, but zero water,' he tells Yahoo Life. Before that, Barrier says he would drink up to five sodas a day. 'I had a cola with lunch, orange soda in the taxi and some type of soda reading bids,' he says. 'It was all part of the grind. But it added up, and I didn't like the tightness in my chest at the end of the day.' After Barrier stopped drinking soda, he says the digestion and bloating issues he struggled with in the past went away. 'I no longer had late afternoon headaches,' he says. While Barrier says his sleep was unaffected, his mornings felt more seamless. 'I could wake up, read crew callouts and still carry on a full conversation before coffee,' he says. Barrier says he replaced his soda habit with iced tea, which he makes in bulk. He also adds mint or lemon, based on the season. 'That kept the ritual but took out the syrup,' he says, noting that this swap doesn't make him feel deprived. 'Don't punish yourself for quitting soda,' Barrier says. 'Set it up as a trade — something better that you feel you've earned.' Nutritionists say you needn't give up soda altogether, but it's wise to cut back if it's become part of your routine. 'Soda should be an occasional treat, not a daily habit,' Scott Keatley, a dietitian and co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy, tells Yahoo Life. 'If you drink it every day, your body may be stuck in a cycle of sugar spikes and cravings.' Those can raise your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and also leave you with energy crashes, he says. That's why Keatley suggests cutting back or switching to unsweetened drinks like sparkling water or iced tea. 'It is not about never having soda again,' he says. 'It is about knowing what it does and making choices that support long-term health.' Stacy Cleveland, a dietitian at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life that probiotic sodas may be a good swap for traditional sodas, but says it's important to find options with minimal sugar. And even then, she recommends limiting them. 'When choosing to consume soda, moderation is best. The less, the better,' Cleveland says.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Palisades and Eaton firefighters had elevated blood levels of mercury and lead, according to an early study
The immediate risks faced by the firefighters who were on the front lines battling the Palisades and Eaton fires that tore through Los Angeles County may have abated, but long-term health concerns remain. A team of researchers tested the blood of a group of 20 firefighters who were called to duty when the wildfires hit Los Angeles County communities, and found that they had levels of lead and mercury in their blood that was significantly higher than what health experts consider to be safe — and also higher than firefighters exposed to a forest fire. The results are part of the longer-term LA Fire Health Study, which is investigating the health impacts of the January fires on those exposed to the toxins it released into the the environment. The team includes researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, UC Davis, the University of Texas at Austin, and the USC Keck School of Medicine. "What you need to worry about is some of these metals that, when they get burned, they get up in the air," said Dr. Kari Nadeau, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and one of the researchers working on the project. "They can get into your lungs, and they can get into your skin, and they get can absorbed and get into your blood." The group of 20 firefighters — who had come from Northern California to assist in the efforts — were tested just days after the fires were contained. They had toiled for long hours as the two fires razed entire communities, burning homes, cars, businesses, and a still unknown list of chemicals and metals. Combined, the fires killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. On average, said Nadeau, the firefighters had lead and mercury levels three and five times higher, respectively, than a control group of firefighters who fought a forest fire alone. According to the California Department of Public Health, the average blood lead level for adults in the United States is less than 1 microgram per deciliter. Read more: Communities are rebuilding after L.A. fires despite lack of soil testing for toxic substances Researchers are still looking to expand the number of firefighters in the study, as well as the range of toxins they may have been exposed to. Nevertheless, even these limited and preliminary findings bolster a growing worry among firefighters that the L.A. fires may have exposed them to metals and chemicals with long-term health effects. "The results are pretty alarming," said Dave Gillotte, a captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and president of the Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014. "We don't just fear, but we're quite confident that we're going to see health impacts with our firefighters who fought these fires on the front lines." Firefighters regularly risk exposure to chemicals and metals — including lead and mercury — when responding to house and commercial fires in an urban setting, Gillotte said. But response to a single house fire, for example, would likely last a few hours, not the days on end of the Palisades and Eaton fires. Firefighters also typically face prolonged exposure to the particulate matter in smoke when fighting wildfires in rural areas — but not the chemicals of an urban setting. The Eaton and Palisades fires presented a combined risk: a wildfire-like blaze with firefighters on the ground for extended periods in an urban setting, with electric vehicles, batteries, chemicals and metals burning in high heat, mixing and spreading with the same wind that was spreading the flames. "It was a more intense exposure as a result of the wind driving those toxins, even with our protective gear," Gillotte said. Read more: New fire maps increase hazard zones in L.A. and Southern California by 3.5 million acres According to Gillotte, these types of urban wildfires could cause long-term health impacts for first responders similar to those from events like the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Already, officials from the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, the Sacramento Fire Department, and Los Angeles County have begun to test their firefighters for metal and chemical exposure, Gillotte said. Meanwhile, as part of a separate study, Los Angeles city fire officials have also been looking at the health effects on its firefighters. "We are very concerned and worried," said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Kevin Frank. The LAFD has so far taken blood and urine samples of about 350 of its firefighters, as part of an ongoing nationwide study, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to look at firefighters' biomarkers and exposure to cancer-causing substances. That study — which is different than the LA Fire Health Study and the one mentioned by Gillotte — includes more than 7,000 firefighters from across the country. After the fires, Frank said, several firefighters who reported to Altadena and Pacific Palisades reported health issues, such as trouble breathing. Nadeau, who is working on the LA Fire Health Study, but not the FEMA-funded national study, noted that exposure to heavy metals can contribute to worse long-term health outcomes. Firefighters already face higher levels of some illnesses, such as autoimmune diseases, asthma and some cancers, she said. Fire officials said the life expectancy of a firefighter is about 10 years lower than that of the average person. The LA Fire Health study is still in its early stages. Nadeau says she and her colleagues plan to look for evidence of exposure to other heavy metals in addition to mercury and lead. "We're going to be studying toxins that haven't been studied" in firefighters before, she said. Read more: Swimming pools in Eaton fire burn area could become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, officials warn Typically, the results of studies like these are not made public until they have been peer-reviewed and published by a scientific journal. Nadeau said the consortium decided to share some of the preliminary data early, hoping to help residents, civic leaders and first responders understand the impacts of the fires. "You really want to know: 'What's in the air, what's in the water, what's in the ash that blew into my kitchen cabinet? Do I let my dog outside?'" she said. "All these questions were coming up and we thought, 'We really need to serve the community.'" Indeed, while the initial findings will be focused on firefighters' exposure, the team is also looking into residents' exposure to heavy metals and chemicals. Nadeau is also looking ahead: The information, she says, could help fire officials as they face the possibility of another similar fire by helping them better understand the source of the chemicals, how safety equipment was used during the fires, and the efficacy of that gear. "I'd like to say this is the last of its kind, but we know it won't be," she said. "It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when people undergo a fire like that again in L.A." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
