You love it, you crave it, you can’t get
enough of it. Coke is your go-to drink, and you’ve decided
to make it the only liquid you put into your body. What could go wrong? To start with, the sugary drink is tricking
you into wanting more. You’ll never actually be able to quench
your thirst, and with each can of soda, you are killing yourself quicker than you think. In the days to come, your teeth will rot,
you will gain weight, and at least one of your vital organs will fail. Before we get started, let’s blow your mind
with some statistics. In 2018 the average American consumed 38.87
gallons of soda throughout the year. This is actually lower than in previous years. For example, in 2010, the average annual consumption
of soda was 45.5 gallons per person in the United States. This is a massive amount of soda to be drinking
annually, and it comes with all kinds of consequences. Although, if we look at the average amount
of soda consumed worldwide in 2018, the United States is not in the number one spot. Argentinians drink about a quarter of a gallon
more soda a year than Americans do. In fact, The Americas themselves hold the
top 5 spots for most soda drank each year, with Argentina being first, the United States
second, Chile third at 37 gallons per year, Mexico fourth at 36 gallons per year, and
Uraguay in fifth at about 30 gallons of soda per year. Belgium, Germany, and Norway come next at
around 26 gallons per person per year. Followed by Saudi Arabia at approximately
23.5 gallons per year. Now if you are drinking soda every day, these
numbers do not apply to you. If we assume that instead of drinking your
recommended 8 glasses of water daily, you drink 8 cups of Coke daily, you will consume
182.5 gallons of Coke during the year. This is somewhere between 4 and 5 bathtubs
full of Coke. Just thinking about that should make you feel
a little queasy, but let’s say you go for it anyways. The first day you switch to your Coke-only
lifestyle, you feel okay. Soda for breakfast seems a little odd at first,
but as the sugar hits your tongue and pleasure signals are sent to your brain, you quickly
forget about the no-soda-for-breakfast taboo. The sugar in the drink is tricking your brain
into wanting more. But it’s not just soda you want more of;
you want more of everything. This is because the sugar your body is taking
in is increasing your appetite. In the days to come, this will lead to many
more problems as your body tries to adjust to only drinking Coke. As the first day of drinking Coke comes to
an end, you’re likely going to be pretty tired. Whenever you needed a pick-me-up, you just
opened another can of Coke. But now that it’s bedtime, you decide that
it's best to stop drinking and try and get some rest. At first you’re a little jittery as the
levels of caffeine and sugar in your body are still pretty high. It will take several hours for your body to
metabolize and use up these chemicals, which means you could be staring at the ceiling
waiting for sleep to come for several hours. But at some point, you will crash hard. You pass out and sleep through the night. When you wake up the next morning, you are
a little achy. You are dehydrated as the high amount of sodium
and high fructose corn syrup in the Coke causes your body to use up much of its resources
to metabolize and digest the sugary liquids from the day before. You go to the sink for a glass of water, but
then you remember that you’ve given up on the clear quench thirster and instead head
to the fridge for another bottle of Coke. The top comes off with a satisfying release
of CO2, and you are officially on day two of your Coke-only lifestyle. Everything seems pretty normal the first few
days except for the ups and downs associated with sugar highs. But as the week progresses, you notice some
changes to your body, none of which are very pleasant. Every time you take a bite of food or sip
of soda, your teeth ache. It’s like you’ve developed cavities overnight. This is actually not too far from the truth. After days of only drinking soda, the enamel
on your teeth starts to break down. As you drink your Coke, the sugar that lingers
in your mouth is used by bacteria to carry out life functions. One of the byproducts of these processes is
an acid that causes your teeth to decay. As your teeth are damaged, cavities, which
are holes in the teeth, start to develop. These can eventually become so painful that
you’ll need to seek the help of a dentist. The crazy part is that the more soda you drink,
the worse the tooth decay is going to get. Not to mention that once you have a cavity,
every time soda enters your mouth, some of the liquid will get inside the holes in your
teeth and cause searing pain. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that
the bacteria destroying your teeth thrive inside your cavities. They also now have a surplus of food because
every time you take a swig of Coke, you are providing them with the sugars they need to
multiply. It’s a vicious cycle that can only end with
you losing a few teeth. But you decide to put up with the mouth pain
and continue chugging that Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, you are about to start noticing
some physical changes to your body that you might not like very much. Every week that you drink Coke instead of
water, you are consuming around 5,000 more calories than you normally would. This is like adding two extra days of meals
to your weekly caloric intake. What this means is that your body is going
to start to become larger. And this is not because you are gaining muscle
from picking up and putting down the soda can all day. The weight you’re gaining is mostly stored
fat. As you plan your meals for the day, it’s
unlikely you are taking into consideration how many extra calories are coming from your
soda. This means you do not adjust what you eat,
and therefore you are consuming hundreds of more calories than you would have on a normal
diet. The high fructose corn syrup in soda also
doesn’t stimulate the production of insulin and leptin the same way that other sugars
do. What this means is that you do not feel full
as quickly as you should. This results in overeating, resulting in weight
gain. As you continue your week, you try and mitigate
your calorie intake by not snacking as much, but when you go for that sugary drink, your
body doesn’t register all of the calories in it the same way it would if you were eating
a protein bar or a healthy snack. So, even after a large glass of Coke, your
body still thinks it needs more calories. On top of this, as your body gets used to
the high amounts of sugar in the Coke, it craves more. Sugars are vitally important to the energy
production process in your cells. The brain knows this, which is why it is programmed
to make you want more and more sugar. Unfortunately, the sugars in Coke do not satisfy
this craving, and you end up finding yourself having that snack anyways. The really unfortunate part is that if you
are a female, there are no fewer than 88 different studies that show weight gain caused by sugary
drinks is more prevalent in women than men. The body typically stores the excess calories
and sugars as fat, which builds up further each day that you are continuously drinking
Coke. But women aren’t the only subgroup that
seems to be negatively impacted by drinking too much soda. Children who drink soda every day increase
their odds of becoming obese by 60%. This is too big of a number to be a coincidence. By drinking soda all the time, there is no
doubt that your body will gain weight, which could also lead to you becoming obese. And with obesity comes all sorts of other
problems that you’ll discover in the weeks to come. There are definitely other factors that play
a role in someone becoming obese other than just drinking soda. However, in a huge study of more than 33,000
people, researchers found that people who have a genetic predisposition for obesity
had a much higher rate of actually becoming obese if they drank soda. However, people with the same predisposition
who did not drink soda were actually less likely to become obese. Why is this important? It shows even if you have a family history
of obesity, staying away from Coke and other sugary drinks might help you maintain a healthy
weight if you also maintain an active lifestyle and eat right. Drinking large amounts of soda, on the other
hand, could worsen the underlying condition and amplify it to deadly levels. So, after a few weeks of only drinking Coke,
your teeth hurt, and your gaining weight. Soon your clothes won’t fit, and you’ll
need to go shopping, but this is the least of your worries. Things are about to get much more serious. As you continuously put high amounts of sugars
into your body via your daily bottles of Coke, your pancreas and liver have to work overtime
to metabolize it all. This can lead to a life-altering disease,
diabetes. Oversaturing your body with sugars from soda
can lead to insulin resistance of your cells or damage to the pancreas that keeps it from
producing enough insulin. Either way, your body is starting to fall
apart from within. Just by drinking 1 or 2 cans of soda a day,
your chances of developing type 2 diabetes increase by around 26%. And since all you’re drinking is Coke, it
is pretty much inevitable that you will develop the disease after a few weeks to a few months. This happens because as the sugar in the Coke
circulates through your body, too much of it is left in the bloodstream due to the fact
that your pancreas just can’t keep up. But a side effect of this excess sugar is
that it can eventually lead to your cells resisting the signals to take in the substance
and produce energy. This is one way that type 2 diabetes develops. There can be no denying that you're rolling
the dice with your body with each extra drink of Coke. At some point, you will probably lose and
be confronted with diabetes. Your pancreas is not the only vital organ
that takes a beating from your Coke-only drinking habits. After months of consuming Coke, your liver
could be in dire straights. Coke and other sodas contain a lot of a type
of sugar called fructose. Fructose is not broken down in the body the
same way other sugars like glucose are. Instead, fructose is processed almost exclusively
in the liver. The problem is that when there is too much
fructose in your body, the excess is stored as fat in your liver. This build-up of liver fat can cause all sorts
of problems inside you. As you consume more soda and more fat accumulates
on your liver, you could develop Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. This can lead to the inflammation of your
liver, which in extreme circumstances can cause scarring of the tissue and liver failure. It probably goes without saying that if your
liver fails due to damage caused by drinking too much soda, you die. But even if you have a milder case of nonalcoholic
fatty liver disease, all kinds of problems can still arise. You might start feeling fatigued due to a
slowing down of your metabolism. There also may be pain or discomfort in your
abdomen as your body tries to signal the brain that there is something very wrong going on. This can also lead to abdominal swelling,
enlarged palms, and even jaundice, which is the yellowing of the skin. This change in skin color is a good indication
that the liver is not working properly as one of its functions is to filter out a chemical
called bilirubin that accumulates when blood cells die. This is a natural process, and a healthy liver
that hasn’t been sabotaged by its owner drinking excessive amounts of soda can easily
filter out the bilirubin. However, if the liver has a build-up of fat
around it, this process is hindered. Drinking Coke every day will also increase
your chances of developing a painful disease called gout. Gout is a form of arthritis that can result
in sudden and severe pain in your joints. One minute you could be sipping your eighth
can of Coke for the day, and the next, you could be on the ground writhing in agony as
your joints feel like they have fire ants crawling within them. Gout occurs when crystals form from a buildup
of uric acid in your joints. These urate crystals are what cause the excruciating
pain associated with gout. The fructose in soda causes your body to produce
uric acid to help break down the complex sugar. As a result, more and more urate crystals
can accumulate in your joints. The more Coke you drink, the more uric acid
your body needs to produce. Every time you take a sip, your body is that
much closer to developing gout. In a 22-year-long study, researchers found
that people who consumed just one can of a sugary drink a day were 75% more likely to
develop gout in the future. So, it is not really a matter of if, but when
you will have to worry about joint pains from gout if you only drink Coke. Just remember that the more times your body
has to dump uric acid into your system to help with the digestion of fructose, the more
likely you are to develop pain in your joints as a result of urate crystals being formed. So, at this point, some of your main organs
are beginning to malfunction or shut down. As the first few months of only drinking soda
comes to an end, you are likely overweight, and your skin may be discolored; it’s not
a pretty sight to look at. However, the worst is yet to come. One study found that drinking just one can
of soda a day can increase your risk of having a heart attack by 20%. You are likely consuming around 8 cans a day
since this is your only source of water, other than what’s in the food you eat. Why do your drinking habits coincide with
an increased risk of having a heart attack? When you started gaining weight, your heart
needed to work harder to circulate blood and nutrients around your body. Like with any muscle, the more you use your
heart and the harder it has to work, the more tired it gets. After months of working overtime just to keep
up with all of the sugar input from the soda your drink, your heart begins to become strained. The extra weight you’ve gained definitely
doesn’t help matters either. There is a correlation between drinking lots
of Coke and what types of food you are putting into your body. Coke and a healthy salad normally don’t
go together, so more likely than not, the meals you’re eating while drinking Coke
probably contain some fatty or processed ingredients. This further aggravates the problems for your
heart as your cholesterol levels are likely increasing as well. The sugar in soda also causes an increase
in blood pressure. All of these factors combined are really bad
news for your heart. The high amount of fructose in soda might
not only cause inflammation of the liver but could cause your arteries and veins to swell
as well. If fat begins to build up along the pathways
that your blood flows through, your heart will need to work even harder than it already
is to make sure that nutrients reach your brain and other vital organs. The Coke you are drinking every day is causing
your body to swell up, increasing the likelihood of a future heart attack. And once you have that heart attack, it’s
highly likely that the doctor who saves your life will tell you to stop drinking soda. Your Coke-only lifestyle will be over. On the plus side, following your doctor’s
advice will probably save your life. As you lay in the hospital bed recovering
from a heart attack your bones start to ache. You have been dealing with gout, but this
is different. You feel like a young person in a 90-year-old
body. And it’s because of your Coke intake that
your bones are literally falling apart. The Coke you’ve been sipping on over the
last several months contains a large amount of phosphate. If you consume more phosphate than calcium,
it can cause your bones to deteriorate. Since Coke contains approximately 0 milligrams
of calcium per bottle and around 37 milligrams of phosphorus, your ratio to maintain healthy
bones is off by a lot. You could supplement your phosphate intake
by drinking more milk or other calcium-rich drinks, but since you decided Coke was the
only beverage for you, this isn’t an option. You could try eating foods high in calcium
like cheese, soybeans, and salmon, but it probably won't be enough since you’ll be
washing it all down with a glass of Coke. The effects of soda on a developing body can
be especially detrimental as having strong bones is vital for the growth process. It’s the shifting of the calcium and phosphorus
ratio within your body that results in a decrease in bone density. Regardless of who you are or your age, this
is not a good thing. On top of this, you now weigh much more, which
is putting even further strain on your bones. You are only a Coke or two away from collapsing,
which brings us to the scariest part of only drinking Coke: it lowers your life expectancy
drastically. It may seem astonishing, but the Coke you’ve
been drinking for years now is changing your DNA. At the end of each of your chromosomes is
a section of genetic code called telomeres. Telomeres play a role in maintaining the integrity
of your DNA every time your cells divide, which is happening all of the time. The division of cells is what allows you to
grow, heal, and replace dead or damaged cells. Every time a cell divides, some of the telomere
section of the chromosome is lost. Eventually, there are no more telomeres left. When this happens, the DNA degrades, and the
cell dies. This is what causes aging. As you get older, your telomeres get shorter
and shorter until your cells start to deteriorate due to the ends of each chromosome no longer
having any protection during cell division. If your cells can’t divide, you can’t
replace damaged or lost cells, which eventually leads to death by old age. The most insane part is that drinking large
quantities of soda every day may actually shorten your telomeres by about the same amount
as someone who smokes cigarettes every day. What this means is that the Coke you're drinking
is shortening your life expectancy by years or even decades. The exact mechanism that causes soda to erode
your cell’s telomeres is not exactly known yet, but recent studies on telomere length
in white blood cells have produced interesting results that connect the two. Scientists from the University of California
San Fransico have found that “daily consumption of a 20-ounce soda was equivalent to an average
of 4.6 years of telomere shortening.” However, the shortening of your life due to
only drinking Coke is not just because of the damage it’s doing to your cells. Studies suggest that drinking one to two glasses
of soda per day can increase your chances of early death by 14%. If you drink two or more glasses per day your
chances of dying early increases to 21%. These are some really scary statistics because
the cause of death is not defined. Your chances of dying from many types of diseases
actually increases as a result of consuming a lot of soda or sugary drinks. The most common cause of death from soda is
from cardiovascular diseases, such as coronary heart disease or stroke. People who drink two or more servings of soda
per day are 31% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease. There is also some evidence to suggest that
consuming soda may increase your risk of certain cancers as well. All of these statistics are not pleasant to
think about, which probably indicates you should quit drinking large quantities of soda
as soon as possible and supplement it with water. But there is some good news. If all you drank was soda for days, weeks,
or months and you haven’t succumbed to any of the terrible side effects mentioned so
far, you may be able to reverse any damage that’s already been done to your body. Everyone’s body is different, which means
that drinking only Coke will affect people in different ways. Take one case of a woman from Monaco. She only drank Coke for 16 years before being
hospitalized. This is probably much longer than most people
would last, but her body did eventually start to fail. From the time she was 15 until she was 31,
all this woman had to drink was Coke. But during the 16th year of this lifestyle,
things started to go terribly wrong. She was constantly fainting, which was likely
due to the inability of her body to deliver enough oxygen and nutrients to the brain. Both her potassium levels and heart rate were
severely impacted by the soda she was consuming all of the time. Doctors and medical professionals believe
that low potassium levels are common among heavy soda drinkers due to fructose-induced
osmotic diarrhea. This is the scientific way to say that the
high amounts of fructose in soda cause the food you eat to stay in your intestine while
water isn’t being absorbed properly by the circulatory system. The excess water in the intestines means that
your bowel movements will be liquidy and loose, which means the more soda your drink, the
more diarrhea you’ll have. This process leads to nutrients such as potassium
not being absorbed properly by the body. However, there is some good news. Even after 16 years of only drinking Coke,
the woman’s body was able to recover with the help of medical professionals and dietary
scientists. There is no doubt that if the doctors did
not intervene, the woman would have died as a result of her choice to only drink Coke. This should be a lesson for you if you are
only drinking soda. By dialing back your Coke intake and drinking
more water, you could literally live longer, and your body will definitely thank you. And we’re not even talking about if you
are an avid Coca-Cola drinker who has multiple cans every day. If you drink soda several times a week, it
could be harming your body if you aren’t supplementing it with healthy meals. Just by removing soda from your diet or limiting
yourself to one or two glasses a week, you will be lowering your risk of developing obesity,
diabetes, and a number of other diseases. Most things in moderation are okay. This includes soda. However, if you drink Coke every day, the
side effects will eventually catch up to you. It may take 16 years, or it could be in a
matter of months. Why take the risk? Try a glass of fresh cold water during your
next meal; it could change your life. Now watch “What Happens To Your Body If
You Never Move.” Or check out “What Happens to Your Body
if You NEVER do this.”
