Sugary drinks could age the body as much as smoking

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We all know that sugar, consumed in excess, is bad for our health leading to diseases such as diabetes, obesity and more.

But did you know that consuming sugar in high amounts could also be a factor in aging?

According to the Daily Mail, people who drank the amount of sugar found in of two cans of cola a day had DNA changes of cells 4.6 years older, say researchers at the University of California at San Francisco.

However, the university stresses that this study does link soft drinks and ageing together, but it doesn’t prove that drinking fizzy drinks causes ageing of the cells entirely.

In the study, the scientists measured telomeres in the white blood cells of 5,309 participants aged 20 to 65, with no history of diabetes or heart disease.

They found drinking two cans of cola a day – 20 fluid ounces – was linked to 4.6 years of ageing, based on telomere shortening and that one in five of the study’s participants fell into this category.

Drinking a small soft drink daily, equivalent to eight fluid ounces, was associated with telomere shortening equivalent to 1.9 additional years of ageing.