Coca Cola: the new Health Drink?!

Che Guava

Che Guava

The Juicy Revolutionary
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The mamazing properties of coloured sugar water!

Coke hopes to prove it's the real iron brew

Coca-Cola has enlisted scientific researchers in a bid to convince the world that it is actually a health drink. Despite its long and troubled association with poor diet and dental-hygiene problems, the sweet, fizzy beverage is being analysed as a possible health drink to combat anaemia.

In clinical trials, men and women are being fed pizza - another food not renowned for its health benefits - and, after washing it down with Coke, having their blood levels of iron measured. The theory under scrutiny is that, once in the stomach, Coca-Cola helps release iron from food so that more of the mineral gets absorbed by the body.

The study, led by doctors at the University of East Anglia, is of a type known as a randomised crossover trial, more traditionally used to test new drugs. It will compare the absorption of iron from a pizza meal consumed with Coca-Cola, Diet Coke or mineral water.

The drink's manufacturer suggests that it could offer a cheap and efficient way to tackle the growing problems of iron deficiency, particularly in young women. The World Health Organisation estimates that one billion people worldwide are anaemic as a result of iron deficiency.

Although much food contains iron, it has to be extracted to make it available for the body. Coke is thought to work when it is drunk with food by extracting iron from the food more efficiently and making it available in a form that the body can use.

Pizza containing iron will be consumed for lunch on two consecutive days with a drink, and iron absorption from the pizza will be measured by the erythrocyte incorporation technique. Blood samples will be taken prior to the first test meal, and more samples will be taken before the volunteers eat a second and third set of test meals.

Professor Susan Fairweather-Tait, who is leading the trial, said: "It is driven by public health needs. There is a global programme to eradicate iron deficiency anaemia, and the reason we are doing this is that we need to find easy ways to help people absorb more iron. Drinking the right sorts of drinks with your meal is one way of doing that. If you have a fruit or acid drink with your meal we know you get more iron that if you have a cup of tea.

"A lot of young people have become iron deficient and we need to find ways of helping children who eat junk food and not much meat and don't get much iron. If we can find something people like drinking as opposed to creating some new functional health food that they are not going to bother with, then we feel it is adding to nutrition.

"Coke may not have the image of being a health food, but it may well do some good."
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link

They'll be obese and dehydrated, but by gum, they'll have IRON! ;)
 
Actually, I drink Coca Cola when I have greasy food. It helps immensely. Except when I have Wendy's burgers. For some reason, the Coca Cola at Wendy's makes me sick. It's like it's not really Coca Cola. It does have a slightly different flavor than the usual Coca Cola I've had. It makes me think it's Pepsi or some combination of Pepsi and Coca Cola.
 
azzaman333 said:
Its called Coke Zero. It has no sugar, therefore making it healthy!!!1!!!onehundredandeleven!!!11!11!!two1!!!
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Looking for a sponsorship deal? :mischief:

On a serious note, I hope whatever does come about in this study will examine alternatives to cola as well. I'm not versed well enough in food chemistry/nutrition to know what exactly unlocks iron in the stomach, but if it could be done with something healthier but still acidic (say, orange juice), then I would feel better about a WHO juice program than a coke one...
 
If I were in this trial then given the amount of coke I drink, and how anemic I am, I'd probably have to be discounted to show what Coca Cola want to see.
 
ironduck said:
Why dehydrated?
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Because it has a higher solute to water ratio than our own body chemistry. So when you drink a coke, you end up with a net loss of water because you have to excrete more to get rid of the salts.

It's kind of llike how drinking salt water is a bad idea to quench your thirst with...
 
Che Guava said:
Because it has a higher solute to water ratio than our own body chemistry. So when you drink a coke, you end up with a net loss of water because you have to excrete more to get rid of the salts.

It's kind of llike how drinking salt water is a bad idea to quench your thirst with...
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Uh, how much salt are you saying is in coca cola? I'm quite sure you're mistaken. There are a lot of people who drink almost exclusively coca cola which clearly would be impossible if you were correct.

Similarly it's a myth that tea and coffee is dehydrating. Although caffeine is a diuretic the amounts in normal tea and coffee is nowhere near enough to make these drinks dehydrating. People can easily drink these and nothing else and stay hydrated.
 
ironduck said:
Uh, how much salt are you saying is in coca cola? I'm quite sure you're mistaken. There are a lot of people who drink almost exclusively coca cola which clearly would be impossible if you were correct.

Similarly it's a myth that tea and coffee is dehydrating. Although caffeine is a diuretic the amounts in normal tea and coffee is nowhere near enough to make these drinks dehydrating. People can easily drink these and nothing else and stay hydrated.
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I misspoke there: it's not the salts that cause a net loss of water, its actually the sugar. High amounts of refined sugar have to be processed by the body to a more usuable form, and most of the reactions require an input of water. Taken with the diuretic properties of teh drink, it'll take more water from your body than it gives, resulting in a net dehydration.
 
Che Guava said:
I misspoke there: it's not the salts that cause a net loss of water, its actually the sugar. High amounts of refined sugar have to be processed by the body to a more usuable form, and most of the reactions require an input of water. Taken with the diuretic properties of teh drink, it'll take more water from your body than it gives, resulting in a net dehydration.
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Do you have anything to back that up with? It's possible to eat quite a lot of refined sugar and not drink exorbitant amount of fluids without becoming dehydrated. Although the amount of sugar in soda such as coca cola is high I don't think it's anywhere near high enough for this. As for the caffeine content it's considerably lower than it is in coffee and given that regular coffee is not a diuretic (in total) by any stretch this is not likely to have any major effect.

As I mentioned before, lots of people live almost exclusively on these drinks, so simply by that your statement seems wrong. Heck, I had a period where I almost only drank coca cola and the little extra I drank meant that my total fluid intake was not larger than it is now, yet I had no issues with dehydration :)
 
I say-no!-to anything that wears away the enamel of my teeth.
 
Caffeine is also a diuretic, so even disregarding the sugar, drinking coca-cola will result in net water loss due to the caffeine.
 
VRWCAgent said:
Caffeine is also a diuretic, so even disregarding the sugar, drinking coca-cola will result in net water loss due to the caffeine.
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No it won't. I already mentioned this. Although caffeine is a diuretic, the amounts present in regular coffee, tea, and coca cola is nowhere near enough to make these drinks diuretics by themselves.

This is a persistent myth, and so easy to show wrong because you can simply try drinking only these drinks for a few days.
 
Okay, so not net loss, but it draws water out of your system. Drink 3-5 quarts ofcoke for five days, exclusively. Check your pee color. Drink 3-5 quarts of water for five days, exclusively. Check your pee color.
 
Well, that's worthy of a test though one should be careful to note other conditions that may contribute :)

I don't think the difference is going to be large. In fact from what I've read on the caffeine content alone the diuretic effect is only temporary at those levels.
 
VRWCAgent said:
Okay, so not net loss, but it draws water out of your system. Drink 3-5 quarts ofcoke for five days, exclusively. Check your pee color. Drink 3-5 quarts of water for five days, exclusively. Check your pee color.
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You shouldn't drink that much ANYTHING.
 
holy crap where can I sign up, I'll no longer ahve to pay for my usual diet.
 
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