Study says soda causes premature aging.
But that isn't enough to scare me from opening another Mountain Dew, or as some refer to the Dew as 'Nectar of the gods'. A study in the U.K. linked the DNA destroyer to good old sodium benzoate, found in such things as Dr. Pepper, Coke, and pickles. Basically, it robs the DNA of essential oxygen needed to effectively splice and reattach vital coding in the helix. U.K. Professor Peter Piper of Sheffield University has this to say. Yeah I know, he does have a funny name. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether," Piper said. "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, ...