Another study I read says drinking one can of soda can have an effect similar to taking cocaine, maybe that is the link.
A new study has found that teenagers who consume high amounts of sugary
soda appear to be more prone towards violence than teenagers who consume
less or no sugary soda. The more soda a teenager consumes, in other
words, the more likely he or she is to show violent aggression towards
classmates, a significant other, and even family members.
David
Hemenway, a professor at Harvard University's School of Public, and his
colleagues instructed a group of 1,878 public school students from
inner-city Boston to fill out questionnaires about how much soda they
had consumed in the previous seven days. The questionnaires also asked
the students how often they carried weapons, consumed alcohol, smoked,
and had a violent interaction with another person.
The students,
who ranged in age between 14 and 18, also answered other background
questions about how often they ate meals with their families, and their
race. After compiling the data and accounting for other outside factors,
the research team discovered that soda intake was directly proportional
to violence levels.
"What we found was that there was a strong
relationship between how many soft drinks that these inner-city kids
consumed and how violent they were, not only in violence against peers
but also violence in dating relationships, against siblings," said
Hemenway. "It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship
was."
The results showed that students who drank one or no cans
of sugary soda a week were nearly half as likely as students who drank
14 cans a week to carry a gun or knife to school. The one or no soda
group was also about half as likely to commit violence against a
partner, or show violent aggression against peers, compared to the
high-consumption group.
"We don't know why (there is a strong
association)," added Hemenway. "There may be some causal effect but it's
also certainly plausible that this is just a marker for other problems
-- that kids who are violent for whatever reason, they tend to smoke
more, they tend to drink more alcohol and they tend to maybe drink more
soft drinks. We just don't know."
Sources for this article include:http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph...
