it's up in the air.... 

Whether you say, soft drinks, pop, soda or soda pop, there are about as many opinions about drinking these fizzy beverages after gastric bypass surgery as there are people!

Here are some facts...so you decide...it really all comes down to what choices you make and what you choose regarding your health. Yes, you get to make that decision. You get to choose, and it's more than just whether it's a Coke or a Pepsi, Diet or regular, soda or pop, there may be much more at stake. 

 It's up to you...

about to pop

1. Drinking soda with caffeine and sugar causes your body to become dehydrated. It actually makes you thirsty. 

2. You could jeopardize your weight loss success.  A can of Coke contains 10 teaspoons of sugar. An 8 ounce can of soda has around 100-200 calories. Not only are the calories from soda pop empty of any nutritional value, they also deplete your body of vital minerals.

3. It's addicting. Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins says, "The latest research demonstrates, however, that when people don't get their usual dose (of caffeine) they can suffer a range of withdrawal symptoms, including headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating. They may even feel like they have the flu with nausea and muscle pain." 

4. Need your teeth? The amount of acid in soda pop is enough to wear away at the enamel of your teeth over time. Teeth with weakened enamel are more sensitive and more susceptible to decay. In tests done on the acidity levels of soda, soda was found to have a pH of 2.5. To put that into perspective, consider that battery acid has a pH of 1 and pure water has a pH level of 7. 

5. Need oxygen? What does ph mean? pH stands for potential of Hydrogen. It's a scale that measures a substances alkaline (oxygen rich) or acidic (oxygen deprived) level. The scale ranges from 1 to 14 with seven being where you optimally want to be.  1 is acidic, 14 is alkaline. 

6. Need more money? Water is cheaper than soda. Let's say you drink 2 cans of soda a day, you could pay $206 over the course of a year to keep that soda habit going. If there is more than one soda drinker in the house, or if you drink more than 2 cans a day, that yearly total could quickly double or triple! 

7. Researches at the University of Texas Health Science Center found that diet sodas put a person at a higher risk of becoming overweight. According to their research, "artificial sweeteners can interfere with the body's natural ability to regulate calorie intake. This could mean people who consume artificially sweetened items are more likely to overindulge."

8. Colas lower bone mineral density. Most colas contain phosphoric acid and caffeine which drain calcium out of the bones. Also, because caffeine is a diuretic and increases urine volume, more minerals are leaving the body before having a chance to be absorbed and put to use.

Dietary calcium helps to stimulate fat breakdown and reduce its uptake into adipose tissue. Epidemiological and clinical studies have found a close association between obesity and low dietary calcium intake. Recent studies have found that maintaining sufficient amounts of dietary calcium helps to induce weight loss or prevent weight gain following diet.

9. Got diabetes? According to a researcher from Children's Hospital Boston, the fact remains "when sugar enters the bloodstream quickly, the pancreas has to secrete large amounts of insulin for the body to process it. Some scientists believe that the unceasing demands that a soda habit places on the pancreas may ultimately leave it unable to keep up with the body's need for insulin. Also, insulin itself becomes less effective at processing sugar; both conditions contribute to the risk of developing diabetes."

10. Any beverage with carbonation, such as soft drinks, champagne, beer, and seltzer waters, force food through the stomach, reducing the time food remains in the pouch. The less time food remains in your stomach, the less satiety or feelings of fullness you experience.

11. An article written by "Beyond Change" on carbonated beverages after weight loss surgery states, "The gas released from a carbonated beverage may "stretch" your stomach pouch. Food forced through the pouch by the carbonation could also significantly enlarge the size of your stoma (the opening between the stomach pouch and intestines of patients who have had a gastric bypass or biliopancreatic diversion). An enlarged pouch or stoma would allow you to eat larger amounts of food at any one setting."

12. As if you needed the added risk of deficiencies, studies show that drinking soda may also cause calcium deficiencies from the high amounts of phosphoric acid that they contain. Phosphate binds to calcium and the bound calcium cannot be absorbed into the body. Both animal and human studies have found that phosphoric acid is associated with altered calcium homeostasis and low calcium. 

13. Need more? Research reported by "Beyond Change" reports that, "Drinking these acidic beverages on an empty stomach in the absence of food, as Bariatric patients are required to do, can upset the fragile acid-alkaline balance of the gastric pouch and intestines and increase the risk for ulcers or even the risk for gastrointestinal adenomas (cancer).

14. Raise your hand if you want to grow old faster! Soft drink usage has also been found to be associated with various other health problems. These include an increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney stones, bone fractures and reduced bone density, allergies, cancer, acid-peptic disease, dental carries, gingivitis, and more. Soft drinks may, in addition, increase the risk for oxidative stress. This condition is believed to contribute significantly to aging and to diseases associated with aging and obesity, i.e. diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, reduced immune function, hypertension, and more. 

still up in the air?

So whether you say "pop" or "soda" or "soft drinks", Ask yourself these questions. Is the choice you made to have surgery based on health? Is your choice to drink soda or other carbonated beverages based on the same principles?

I hate to "burst" your bubble, but you might want to "pop" into reality. It would seem that drinking all those bubbly sodas will "pop" your chances of achieving your best health and long lasting weight loss success. Don't "burst" your changes of health, wellness and weight loss surgery success. The choice is still up to you. 

With all the evidence against sugary laden sodas, why do you think there is so much controversy over soda pop? Could it be that it just might be that we really just don't want to give it up? Our health is kind of like those balloons, once its "out of hand", you might not ever get it back...

Some information taken from an article  "Why Carbonated Beverages are "TABOO" after bariatric Surgery"By: Cynthia Buffington, Ph.D