A study which was led by Zumin Shi, MD, PhD, University of Adelaide, and recently published in the journal Respirology reveals that drinking too many soft drinks is directly linked to instances of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.
Between March 2008 and June 2010, 16,907 people aged 16 and up participated in the research via computer assisted telephone interviewing. The soft drinks that were inquired about include Coke, Gatorade, Powerade, lemonade and flavored mineral water, to name a few.
An analysis of the data showed that about 13.3% of the respondents who had asthma and 15.6% of the respondents who suffered from COPD drank over 500 ml of soft drinks each day. There is a dose-response relationship between soft drink consumption and risk of respiratory diseases. What this means is that the higher the amount of soft drink consumption, the greater the chances of developing asthma and/or COPD.
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