What you drink is a big part of what we put into our bodies and should be considered part of our overall diet. Choosing healthy drinks is just as important as choosing healthy foods.
Everything you sip has the potential to impact your overall health — and if you want to protect your health. Here is a list of drinks to steer clear of:
Sugary Sports Drinks
Regular sodas, energy and sports drinks as well as other sweet drinks contain a lot of sugar and provide more calories than needed. According to Healthy Eating Research, consuming sugary drinks is associated with excess weight gain , poor nutrition, displacement of healthful beverages, and a higher risk for obesity and diabetes.
We are not claiming that these sports drinks are bad for a person’s health. People can still consume them in moderation without adverse effects.
Diet Drinks
Diet Soda is packed with artificial sweeteners which can contribute to weight gain, increase hunger, diabetes and can even affect your metabolism.
Additionally, a JAMA study found that consuming two or more sugar-sweetened beverages a day increased the risk of death by 8% and those who drank artificially sweetened beverages had a 26% higher risk- this is because sweetened drinks are associated with diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart attack, and other conditions.
In that sense, we can say that diet drinks with artificial sweeteners when consumed excessively can negatively affect our health.
Alcohol
Drinking alcohol moderately a day is likely not harmful for your health as it outweighs the risks. The recent consensus is that at this point consumption must be no more than 1 or 2 drinks per day for men and no more than 1 drink per day for women. In some studies, people who moderately drank (less than two drinks a day on most days) had a 20% lower risk of dying from heart disease such as heart disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure and coronary heart disease than those who did not drink.=
Bottom-line, alcohol overconsumption can’t be good to your overall health as this can be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other conditions. The more you drink heavily, the health risk increases.
The Takeaway
It’s best to limit taking all these beverages and for a refreshing drink with flavor, you can try adding a squeeze of lemon juice to plain water.
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