Say "NO" To Soft Drinks

Now a days we like to do useless something which doesn’t have any value. Like that we eat and drink a lot of invaluable food and fluid, various kinds of soft drinks are the best example. A big quantity of peoples of our country follows Europe and America. So we prefer soft drinks in every field of our country and we think that it bear social status.

Do we know what soft drink is? Colorful label and advertise of soft drink screech touch on our mind and we are taking this as like simple water. Have you ever though what you drink when you drink an aerated drink?

· Look at the wrapper of a 1.5 liter bottle of any soft drink and the ingredients you will find phosphoric acid in it. Minute quantities of ethylene are also used. This is popularly known as anti freeze which prevents water from freezing at 0 degree C and intend drop it by 4-5 degrees with minute quantities. This chemical is a known slow poison in the caliber of arsenic. So if you manage to drink 4 liters of coca cola or any other soft drink in an hour or so u may die.

· Do you know what the pH for soft drinks is? It is 3.4. This acidity is strong enough to dissolve your teeth and bones. Human body stops building bones at around the age of 30. After that it will be dissolving about 8-18% of the bones each year though the urine depending of the food intake (acidity does not depend on the taste of food, but on the ratio of potassium/calcium/magnesium etc. to phosphorus). Teeth and bones are the only parts of the body which remain as such even after death.

· All the dissolved calcium compounds accumulate in the arteries, veins, skin, and tissue. This effects the functioning of kidney (kidney stone)

· Soft drinks do not have any nutritional value (in terms of vitamins and minerals). They have higher sugar content, higher acidity, and more additives such as preservatives and colorings agents. Independent laboratory test suggest that each cane contain about 6.5 tea spoonful of sugar, a jolting 40-72 milligrams of additives caffeine, a pinch of glycerin and a splash of alcohol.

· Our body has an optimum temperature of 37 C for the functioning of digestive enzymes. This temperature of soft drinks is much less than 37; sometimes quite close to 0.this will lower the effectiveness of the enzymes and put stress on the digestive system, digesting less food. In fact of food gets fermented. This fermented food producing bad smelling gasses, decays and forms toxins which are absorbed in the intestines, get circulated in the blood and is delivered to the whole body. This spread of toxins can lead to the development of virus diseases.

· Soft cola drinks may contain ester gum as emulsifying agent. Ester gum manufacture uses glycerol which can be of animal origin. Readers may be interested to know that the earth island USA has printed that although coca-cola refuses to reveal the contents of its drink, Follow up with the company in USA, finally resulting in their admitting that glycerin (could be animal or non-animal in origin) in the form of glycerol ester of wood rosin is an ingredient of coca-cola.

· Cause of too much drinking soft drink it’s very simple to die in spot because it increases carbon di oxide in the blood and not enough oxygen.

Imagine what these soft drinks must be doing to your soft intestine and stomach lining! In Bangladesh people hesitate to pay Tk. 5 for tender drinks like coconut water but prefer to pay Tk. 10 and drink these dreadful drinks which are just reducing some beautiful years of our life. If you think your life has some value,its time to stop drinking all these life reducing agents.

Banna
B. Pharma
Jamia Hamdard University
New Delhi,India

Reference:

http://www.mouthshut.com/

Tea and Our Health

The first commercial tea plantation in Bangladesh was introduced in the eastern part of the country in 1854 at Malnichara in Sylhet. The number of tea gardens increased to 158 (2000) by time.Now Bangladesh is 9th world largest tea producing country and also proudly having world three largest gardens both by production and size. Almost Each and every Bangladeshi likes to take tea as their favorite drink! Maximum of Bangladeshi start their day with taking 1 cup of tea and maximum of them takes 3-4 times in a day. Do we know the facts of tea?

Is there any benefit of taking tea? Let’s see....

1. Tea is among the richest natural sources of antioxidants, which have been linked with cancer prevention, decreased risk of stroke, and reduced blood cholesterol. Additionally, it has trace amounts of various nutrients such as the amino acid theanine; the minerals calcium, magnesium, manganese and potassium; and the vitamins C and K. Antioxidants, Like the Rust-Oleum paint that keeps your outdoor furniture from rusting, tea's antioxidants protect your body from the ravages of aging and the effects of pollution.

2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee. Coffee usually has two to three times the caffeine of tea (unless you're a fan of Morning Thunder, which combines caffeine with mate, an herb that acts like caffeine in our body). An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains around 135 mg caffeine; tea contains only 30 to 40 mg per cup. If drinking coffee gives you the jitters, causes indigestion or headaches or interferes with sleep, switch to tea.

Some companies use chemicals to decaffeinated tea; others use a water process. The chemical process removes more of the beneficial polyphenols, so read labels carefully when choosing decaffeinated tea.

3. Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke (mentioned avobe). Unwanted blood clots formed from cholesterol and blood platelets cause heart attack and stroke. Drinking tea may help keep your arteries smooth and clog-free, the same way a drain keeps your bathroom pipes clear. A 5.6-year study from the Netherlands found a 70 percent lower risk of fatal heart attack in people who drank at least two to three cups of black tea daily compared to non-tea drinkers.

Black tea consumption may lower bad cholesterol levels and could one day be used to help reduce the chance of heart disease for those at risk, U.S. researchers said on 10-01-2003.

A study involving people diagnosed with coronary artery disease reported that subjects who drank four cups of black tea per day showed improved blood vessel function. These results suggest that drinking tea may improve an important underlying abnormality of blood vessel function that may be related to coronary artery diseases.

4. Tea protects your bones. It's not just the milk added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that compared tea drinkers with non-drinkers, found that people who drank tea for 10 or more years had the strongest bones, even after adjusting for age, body weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors. The authors suggest that this may be the work of tea's many beneficial phytochemicals.

5. Tea gives you a sweet smile. One look at the grimy grin of Austin Powers and you may not think drinking tea is good for your teeth, but think again. It's the sugar added to it that's likely to blame for England's bad dental record. Tea itself actually contains fluoride and tannins that may keep plaque at bay. So add unsweetened tea drinking to your daily dental routine of brushing and flossing for healthier teeth and gums.

6. Tea bolsters your immune defenses. Drinking tea may help your body's immune system fight off infection. When 21 volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four weeks, researchers saw higher immune system activity in the blood of the tea drinkers.

7. Tea protects against cancer. Black tea's 'secret weapon' may be a compound called theaflavin-3'-monogallate (TF-2), one of a family of potent anti-cancer compounds called polyphenols.TF-2 ``shows very interesting properties'' against colon cancer cells, according to researcher Dr. Kuang Yu Chen of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Thank the polyphenols, the antioxidants found in tea, once again for their cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research is inconclusive, there are enough studies that show the potential protective effects of drinking tea to make adding tea to your list of daily beverages.


8. Tea helps keep you hydrated. Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to be on the list of beverages that didn't contribute to our daily fluid needs. Since caffeine is a diuretic and makes us pee more, the thought was that caffeinated beverages couldn't contribute to our overall fluid requirement. However, recent research has shown that the caffeine really doesn't matter -- tea and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid needs. The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is concerned is when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated beverage at one time.

9. Tea is calorie-free. Tea doesn't have any calories, unless you add sweetener or milk. Consuming even 250 fewer calories per day can result in losing one pound per week. If you're looking for a satisfying, calorie-free beverage, tea is a top choice.

10. Tea increases your metabolism. Lots of people complain about a slow metabolic rate and their inability to lose weight. Green tea has been shown to actually increase metabolic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 additional calories by drinking just five cups of green tea per day. Over a year's time you could lose eight pounds just by drinking green tea. Of course, taking a 15-minute walk every day will also burn calories.


Conclusion: There really isn't enough difference to get overly excited about. All teas generally contain the same amount of flavonoids. Green and black teas come from the same plants, but green tea is dried for a shorter time and doesn't go through a fermenting process used for black tea.

__________________________________________________________
Banna
B. Pharma
Jamia Hamdard University
New Delhi, India.


References:

http://health.ivillage.com/eating/0,,7kq79l90,00.html
http://cmbi.bjmu.edu.cn/news/0108/291.htm
http://yalenewhavenhealth.org/HealthNews/Reuters/20031001elin003.htm
http://www.preparedfoods.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/PF_Newsletter_Item/0,8364,131025,00.html http://www.teausa.com/general/204g.cfm