Death by Coca Cola

11 Comments

1. 1
   Tim
   February 12 19:45 1
   Important to note that she drank 10+ liters per day.
2. 2
   Lynda
   February 12 20:23 1
   So proud to be a New Zealander most days but this story is terrible. 10 litres a day is madness and surely this woman was an addict. Sad that she could not be stopped because surely, someone in her family would have tried? I just hope that this serves as some kind of warning to others.
3. 3
   greensleeves
   February 12 20:42
   It's not just regular Coke that's deadly, and it's not just the amount. In fact we have to remember that Diet Coke has even worse associations:

   "Françoise Clavel-Chapelon (Director of Research at INSERM-University of Paris-Sud 11, at the Institut Gustave Roussy), and Guy Fagherazzi were interested in a connection between the consumption of ‘diet’ or ‘light’ soft drinks and the risk of Type II diabetes. The analysis performed on 66,188 women in the E3N cohort confirms a link between sweet soft drinks and type II diabetes and reveals for the first time in France that, contrary to received wisdom, there is a higher risk of diabetes from so-called ‘diet’ or ‘light’ drinks than from ‘normal’ sweetened soft drinks.

   Several mechanisms can explain the increased risk of diabetes associated with high consumption of sweetened soft drinks:

   Firstly, in terms of calories, these drinks are no substitute for solid food because sweet soft drinks are not sufficiently satiating (so the calories in sweet soft drinks are added to the calories in solid food). Furthermore, the sugars contained in sweetened drinks produce an insulin peak reaction and repeated peaks of this kind can result in greater insulin resistance.
   With respect, in particular, to ‘light’ or ‘diet’ drinks, the relationship with diabetes can be explained partially by a greater craving for sugar in general by female consumers of this type of soft drink. Furthermore, aspartame, one of the main artificial sweeteners used today, causes an increase in glycæmia and consequently a rise in the insulin level in comparison to that produced by sucrose."

   http://www.e3n.fr

4. 4
   bernardo
   February 12 21:57 1
   "Etude Epidémiologique auprès de femmes de la MGEN"

   Observational study. Of course people who drink diet soda are those less health conscious and probably overweight (pre-diabetic), so the confounding variables here are many.

   Diet softdrinks may not be good, but I'm yet to see something really definive about them. And to say they can cause diabetes, I doubt. Acctually this woman seems to have died from too much caffeine, but if she was addicted to coffe instead this would never make it to this blog

   One thing I can say though, I don't few hungry and I don't crave carbs after drinking diet coke. If the whole insulin theory is true I should. Well maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who don't get an insulin spike from those.

5. 5
   Zepp
   February 12 22:41
   I think she died of malnutrition!

   If one drink 10 liters a day of any fluid.. how could it be place for any food?

   And drinking 10 liters should make anybody to stay moste time on the toilet?

6. 6
   murray
   February 12 23:25 2
   Over a kilogram of sugar per day according to the article. Good grief. That is over 4000 calories per day of sugar alone, before any other food. Little wonder she got ill. She also must have been getting a lot of acid in her stomach from all the carbonation, which can't be a good thing. The caffeine does not seem extraordinary; I work with several people and have relatives who easily surpass that in coffees per day.

   With an addiction that bad, there were likely issues apart from the addictive effect of sugar and caffeine. Quite a knot to untie, but 4000 calories of sugar per day would surely make anyone gravely ill before too long.

7. 7
   FrankG
   February 12 23:39 1
   @bernado: "Observational study. Of course people who drink diet soda are those less health conscious and probably overweight (pre-diabetic), so the confounding variables here are many."

   While I agree that with an observational study there are likely confounding variables, at the same time I question your assumptions...

   It seems to me that the very people who drink diet sodas are the health conscious ones -- perhaps misguided but nonetheless they are trying.

   As for assuming overweight and that is somehow the same as pre-diabetic, not only smacks of being judgmental but clearly demonstrates an ignorance of cause and effect. Diabetes is NOT caused by being overweight.

8. 8
   bernardo
   February 13 0:29 2
   Most overweight people are trying to loose weight, diet coke is the first thing they try (what, 0 calories!!?? Magic!). Health conscious people do not drink soda regulary. Just look around you, most overweight people drink a lot of diet soda. Most people I know that have normal coke are thin and will seldom do it.

   I didn't say anything about what causes what. But the two are associated as we all know, and personally I believe in the insulin theory and do think that pre-diabetis, caused by too many carbs on a diet, will have obesity as a common sympton.

   Please don't put words in my mouth (or text).and don't call other people ignorant for nothing. Also, I can't be judgemental since I used to fit exactly in that group of fat pre-diabetic people (no, no causation here) drinking diet soda frequently. I was just trying to briefly explain why you can't have an observational study about artificial sweeteners (or any other subject) with so many loose variables.

9. 9
   MargieAnne
   February 13 3:18 1
   Hi from New Zealand also.

   The sad thing to me is Coca Cola's response. "Couldn't possibly be our product"

   There had to be many other contributing factors but our Coroners are noted for being careful and conservative so methinks he is right on the button.

   Poor woman. Poor family.

   But hope there is no knee jerk reaction. There is talk of warnings on packaging.

   Time we stopped playing Nanny to others .... I really dislike it when someone tries to control my life. I've got a brain and make my own decisions. Hope this goes the way of most mad ideas but coca cola brought it on their own head if this continues.

   Pity there are some bad news stories coming out of our beautiful country.

   Blessings

10. 10
    Nzmegs
    February 13 17:22
    Another NZer here (but living in the UK). I am surprised no one questioned her obvious addiction and why her doctor didn't treat this before it killed her. this is much more than the half a litre most people drink per day (which is bad enough) and ten litres of any liquid is bound to cause problems with reduced body salts etc.

    that said, companies like Coco cola need to step up to the plate and take some responsibility.

11. 11
    
    Ted Hutchinson
    February 14 13:02
    COCA-COLA ET LA FORMULE SECRETE
    If your French is OK you can watch this direct but you can (if like me your French is rubbish) choose subtitles and then have them translated.
    Some of the dialogue is actually in English and you'll see the translations may be a bit comical at times but it's still worth watching. It explains why Coke may be more addictive and dangerous than you thought possible.
    It includes a contribution from Lustig.

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