UCSF Study: Drinking Soda Makes You Age Faster

Regular soda consumption is now directly linked with shorter life spans, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

The news hits just as proposed taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages go before voters in Berkeley and San Francisco, and just as soda companies are burying both cities in millions of dollars of campaign spending.

San Francisco Magazine reports that adults who consumed one single 20-ounce soda drink -- sugared, not diet -- aged more quickly. In other words, just one Coke means aging 4.6 biological years more than the people who reached for something else at the beverage stand.

On top of that, there's the whole obesity thing.

Researchers found that diet sodas and naturally-sugared drinks like fruit juice did not have the same effect, which was measured by comparing certain chromosomal sequences in the 5,309 adults who participated in the study.

"Accelerated cellular aging" is not something you'll likely see in Coca-Cola's marketing materials anytime soon, but soda does appear to be the choice of a more-rapidly dying generation.

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