Fizzing Out

More energy. Enhanced athletic performance. Better focus in school. Sophomore Cameron Jantsch owes these qualities to swearing off soda. Two years ago, Jantsch, who swims and plays volleyball, decided to give up all sugar. She’s part of a growing group of consumers across the U.S. who have recently given up the carbonated beverage.

In the last 12 months, soda popularity has dropped. In October, Coca Cola reported a 14 percent decrease in net income compared to the previous year. Within the halls of East, soda made its last appearance two years ago when the vending machines were restocked with healthier options. Between East removing the sugary sip from campus to abundant studies that indicate a fizzling out of the once ever-popular carbonated creation, soda is on the downfall.

And according to University of Kansas Medical Center nutritionist Leigh Wagner, this is probably with good reason. There are health complications associated with both long-term and short-term diet and regular soda consumption.

Wagner said that in the short term, sugar can spike and crash blood sugar which can make a person tired and worn out.

In the past two years, Jantsch noticed that she’s been more focused in school and able to concentrate for longer periods of time. However, giving up her sweet tooth was challenging. In addition to her chocolate habit, Janstch would often purchase soda.

“When I went out to eat, my go-to drink was always Sprite,” Janstch said.

But now, she sticks with water, and feels she is better off because of it. She used to need a lot of sleep, due in part to those crashes and spikes sugar can cause. However, now she can function with shorter nights of sleep.

Junior tennis player Jack Santili said these crashes are the main reason so many of his fellow athletes have also given up the drink.

“I really don’t know any people who would willingly drink a Coke before they played a match,” Santili said.

The main part of the body that’s affected by mass soda consumption is the hormone insulin. Wagner explains that insulin acts as a signal or message telling the body to take sugar out of the blood and put it into a cell.

“After a while of having a lot of sugar circulating because you’re drinking a 64 ounce Mountain Dew, your body will stop listening to that signal of insulin and it will then become insulin-resistant,” Wagner said.

This insulin resistance can often lead to diabetes. While these health risks have been widely known for a long time, just recently the public eye has taken its usual criticism of the drink and turned it into a sizeable impact, creating a drop in sales and profit.

Wagner also said that for a long time large soda corporations had been telling their customers that soda was okay in moderation. According to Wagner, now after countless studies, it is known that both diet and regular soda actually be detrimental to the body.

“It’s truly empty calories, meaning that it’s a calorie that is sending a negative message to the body versus calories from a cup of broccoli,” Wagner said. “[The broccoli] can be sending more positive messages to the body by giving vitamins and minerals.”

In regards to diet soda, Leigh how the drink could be harmful to the body due to artificial sweeteners. These sweeteners can spike insulin the same way a regular sugar might, which creates the same insulin resistance in the body.

But to both Wagner and Jantsch, eliminating soda is just one piece of an overall movement towards healthier food. Wagner said that whole foods when compared to processed foods full of sugar are better for the body, and that’s where the public health focuses are going. Wagner emphasized that young people who still consume heavy amounts of sugar shouldn’t lose hope just yet. The long-term damage like diabetes and insulin-resistance, that a high-sugar diet can cause is possible to reverse, especially the younger a person is.

“The earliest we can catch people doing these more negative health practices the better, the easier it is to recover from it.”