A top doctor has said that he feels miles better after cutting one drink from his diet, one that he said was much harder to give up than alcohol. Dr James Kinross PhD told The Doctors Kitchen Podcast that he had given up two things in order to better operate as a doctor.
Of these two, one of the most surprising was the removal of fizzy drinks from his diet, a popular type of ultra-processed food (UPF) that he said can cause “all sorts of harm” and which he said could change the gut microbiome.
Dr James said that despite the obvious health benefits of not fuelling himself with a drink high in sugar, he found it “so so difficult” to give up. He explained: “I gave up fizzy drinks. Another major thing that I’ve observed in my own life is I have to think very carefully about the fluids I drink, what I’m going to drink, what I’m going to bring to work.
“Because you want something that’s tasty, that’s nice to drink and I don’t want to drink [fizzy drinks]. I’ve found that’s even harder than giving up alcohol, I found that so so difficult, but I just feel so much better. We know, we just know these fizzy carbonated drinks they cause all sorts of harm…we know it changes the microbiome.”
Dr James isn’t the first medical expert to warn about drinking fizzy drinks.
Warnings around fizzy drinks
Fizzy drinks are widely regarded as bad for your health, given their high levels of sugar and calories, while contributing little-to-no nutritional value.
Dr Frankie Phillips, from the British Dietetic Association, warns one of their biggest health issues is the damage it can cause to your teeth. “The problem with fizzy and diet drinks is they’re very acidic,” she told Newsbeat. “They can cause erosions to the dental enamel, potentially dissolving the enamel on our teeth.”
She also pointed out that there has been a link between consuming fizzy drinks and an increased risk of type two diabetes. Gastroentorologist Dr Reshma Rakshit also said that heartburn and acid reflux could be triggered by fizzy drinks, reported SurreyLive. She said: “In a human being, the function of the gullet is to move food down into the stomach. In the normal stomach acid is produced, and this helps to digest our food.
“Now, if there are certain risk factors, this food, fluid and acid can move up into the gullet, and as the gullet is not used to an acidic environment it creates symptoms such as heartburn.”
The NHS also warns children should avoid sugary fizzy drinks as, if they don’t they will be more likely to become overweight.
UPFs warnings
One of the leading campaigners in this space is Dr Chris van Tulleken, a prominent British expert in the field of UPFs and a staple of several food programmes on mainstream television.
Last year he was one of the leading minds behind the BBC2 programme ‘Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating’ and answered questions about the psychological mechanisms that occur when we eat these foods.
He told the BBC that part of his goal was to change how we view how we eat these foods and understand that the repeated consumption of these foods is not a weakness in ourselves but a chemical reaction to what is in UPFs.
Dr Chris explained: “This environment has been created by an industry that has very little interest in public health. I wanted to show that when people struggle with food it is not their fault.
“The products that we consume all day have been developed and marketed by some of the smartest people on earth to be irresistible. The film makes the case that the companies need regulation, just like Big Tobacco.”