Does Cola Really Cause Cancer?
The news: Caramel color sounds harmless — maybe even pretty delicious, right? Everyone likes caramel. But it might not be.
A recent investigation by Consumer Reports found that many types of artificial caramel coloring, used in virtually every dark-colored soda, contain a potentially carcinogenic chemical called 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI). 4-MeI was found to cause cancer in mice in 2007 and was declared a potential carcinogen in 2011. Their experts tested 81 soda cans and bottles from various manufacturers from April to September 2013 in California and New York, and repeated the process with 29 new samples in December.
While there are no federal regulations on 4-MeI, in the state of California, any product containing more than 29 micrograms a can of the substance must carry a safety warning. And according to Consumer Reports’ Dr. Urvashi Rangan, “the amount of 4-MeI in them should pose a negligible risk, which is defined as no more than one excess cancer case in one million people.” That would be a cutoff level of three micrograms per can.
Sugary drinks have been linked to endometrial cancer in women, prostate cancer in men, pancreatic cancer, and obviously, obesity, diabetes, and poor cardiovascular health. Diet soda isn’t much better.
Ready for this? Here’s what they discovered.
Read the full article here.
Category: Veganism and African Americans
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
