New reason to avoid soft drinks....

Today's post: Tuesday, 12-30-2008

It was in the online health news recently that a Korean study had found that inorganic phosphates may cause or worsen lung cancer if they get into your body.

Unfortunately many of us apparently have a lot of this stuff, inorganic phosphates, in us already. (You’ll see why later in this post.)

Even if you don’t smoke yourself, periodically you may breathe in second hand smoke or air that’s too high in tiny particulates, particularly if you travel on or live near a freeway or heavily traveled street or live in an area high in such air pollution or are around copiers at work. Or you may breathe in radon gas in some locations without knowing it as it is odorless and invisible to your sight.

So, you have some risk of lung cancer even if you don’t smoke.

(If you smoke at all, your risk of lung cancer does go up. And, if you smoke heavily or are subjected to a very large amount of second hand smoke, we now know your odds of getting lung cancer go up to 25%. That’s a bit like playing Russian Roulette with a revolver with four chambers. Even worse, this new research suggests that if you drink soft drinks regularly and eat the foods high in inorganic phosphates often, and breathe in this much cigarette smoke, your risk may go up to over 50 %.)

Inorganic phosphates are in commercial baked goods and "beverages" (soft drinks and less than 100 % juice "drinks") & may be in cheeses, some kinds of meats – particularly processed meats and lunch meats in packages or meats such as sausages. They may also be in some alcoholic drinks.

Here’s how to avoid ingesting them.:

Since commercial baked goods tend to & soft drinks do make you fat and provide virtually no nutrition, simply do not consume them at all or do so less than a few times a year.

Regular and diet soft drinks are so high in phosphates in fact that they have been implicated in causing your body to pull calcium from your bones and contributing to osteoporosis. So, simply never drinking them or only a tiny amount over a year’s time may be the best single way to avoid ingesting inorganic phosphates.

Eat cheese and meat from grain-fed animals infrequently and simply do not consume "lunch" meats or only consume "lunch" meats, hot dogs, or sausages less than a few times a year total unless they come from Whole Foods or a similar source that says that such additives are NOT in them. (These sources of protein have too much omega 6 oils and saturated fat to be good for you to eat often anyway. And, most of the pesticides and herbicides most people are exposed to are bioconcentrated in the fat of these grain-fed animals. Wild caught fish, beef fed only grass, nuts, beans and lentils, and leaner poultry, nonfat or very lowfat dairy, and eggs tend to be much better for your health to eat than meat from grain-fed animals.)

And, be moderate in drinking alcoholic drinks & only drink bar drinks made with ingredients other than the source of the alcohol, water, and juice a few times a year or less.

Following these guidelines will improve your health in many ways. And, many of our posts have listed those ways.

So, following them would be a good idea for those other reasons.

Now we know following them may also help prevent lung cancer too.

THAT is news indeed!