Time to quit soft drinks

In today’s Reuters story run in The Star:

No safe haven: Diet sodas linked with health risks
Soft drinks -- even diet ones -- may be linked with increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, US researchers said on Jul 23.

And if that’s not a good a enough reason to quit soft drinks, try reading this earlier article in The Independent (UK):
Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health
Expert links additive to serious cell damage.

In the book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (2004), Ray Kurzweil and Dr. Terry Grossman also reveal how dangerous soft drinks are:

Soft drinks are hard on the body

>> Your body will act to neutralize acidic drinks with alkaline blood buffers. Most soft drinks are extremely acidic. Colas also contain high levels of phosphoric acid, an acid capable of poisoning you if not quickly neutralized. Cola (regular or diet) has an extraordinarily low pH of 2.5 (that is, acidic).
It would take 3,200 glasses of alkaline water with a pH of 8 (or 32 glasses with a pH of 10) to neutralize a single 8oz glass of cola. If the body did nothing to counteract the acid in the cola, a single glass would lower your blood pH to 4.6, killing you instantly (…)
There were no colas nor carbonated soft drinks thousands of years ago, so our bodies did not evolve to deal effectively with the onslaught of acids that many people consume today, and there are problems resulting from the body’s detoxification strategies. <<

I completely quit soft drinks about 8 months ago, and my only regret is that I didn’t do so earlier.

I only had some “cravings” during my first week without soft drinks, but after that, I lost all desire to consume the stuff. As an added benefit, I’m a lot less of a sweet tooth these days, and I have also cut down on sweet foods and sugar in other drinks.