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Jesse Phipps
English II
Mrs. Hayes
5 February, 2015

Why You Should Drink Water or Other Healthy Beverages and Not Soda Whether you’re an athlete or not, drinking soda can dramatically change the way you live your everyday life. Soda can affect your teeth enamel, body fat count, energy levels, and overall health. Drinking soda can lead to kidney stones, along with chronic kidney disease, diabetes, heartburn & acid reflux, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Alternatively, drink water; water helps your body instead of hurts it, by maintaining body fluids, controlling calories, and aids kidney and bowel functions.
Drinking water improves the overall health and performance of the body, while drinking soda leads to oral damage, kidney problems, and loss of optimal performance of organs. One of the leading plights against soda is that the sugar in the drink eats away at your teeth, possibly causing oral injuries such as cavities and gum disease. Although maintained by routine oral hygiene, drinking soda can leave permanent damage to your

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teeth by lowering your enamel. Soft drinks are responsible for doubling or tripling the incidence of tooth decay, as told by Dr. Mercola, and that soda's acidity is even worse for teeth than the solid sugar found in candy. Water, however, prevents cavities if taken from the local water supply or bottled water companies because it contains fluoride, which is a cavity­preventing chemical applied to the water which has no effect on color, taste, or smell of the water. Drinking your daily dosage of water will have a great effect on your oral health and overall bodily functions.
Soda can also damage your kidneys. From kidney stones to chronic kidney failure, soda really puts the stress to your kidneys. Dr. Joseph Mercola claims that
Drinking one quart (less than three 12­ounce cans) of soda per week may increase your risk of developing kidney stones by 15 percent. Diet soda, soda that is sweetened with artificial sweeteners such as splenda, contains high levels of sodium, causing your kidneys to compensate for the high levels of sodium, and can lead to damaged kidneys.
Water on the other hand, aidsy our kidneys by keeping them working at maximum efficiency, which leads us to another reason why water is a better choice than soda.
Soft drinks are generally damaging to your body due to all the sugars, dyes, and chemicals contained in them. high fructose corn syrup, a common ingredient, can lead to diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. High fructose corn syrup also contains unregulated amounts of mercury, which is poisonous to humans. Consuming high fructose corn syrup can also lead to a weakened immune system through asthma,

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multiple sclerosis, and food allergies. Many soft drinks also contain large amounts of caffeine, a psychological stimulant, which can lead to indigestion, headaches, forceful heart contractions, and increased anxiety if consumed in large amounts. After drinking a soda, you will begin to feel full of energy, but then become sluggish and lazy as your body rapidly turns massive amounts of sugar into fat (Mercola What Happens to Your
Body Within an Hour of Drinking a Coke). Bottled or tap water, however, contains not only the H2O our body needs, but also fluoride to strengthen our tooth enamel and prevent cavities. Other beverages such as cranberry juice, is a healthy, natural drink that also strengthens your tooth enamel.
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