Assuming you don't live in a van down by the river or spend your days listening to one of the "no news, just music" channels on Sirius Satellite
For those who've still not heard, here's a brief rundown. Harvard monitored 52,000 nurses' consumption of soft drinks and sugar-added fruit cocktails over the course of eight years. At the conclusion of the study, the results were at once glaringly obvious and frighteningly specific: Drinking as little as a single glass of regular soda a day creates "positive associations" with "greater weight gain and risk of type 2 diabetes." That's in comparison to the results recorded for persons who drink fewer than one nondiet soda a month.
Needless to say, a study stating as "fact" what most people always understood to be true from experience -- that consuming sugar makes you fat -- already has soft-drink makers such as Coca-Cola
Still, long before the Harvard study came out, there have been voices decrying the weighty effects of corn syrup on our national scales. Bill Maher, host of Time Warner's
But while Americans might be able to tune out a talk show host on a late-night premium cable channel, it is going to be harder to ignore Harvard and 52,000 nurses.
Want to learn more about what you're drinking? Let The Motley Fool be your guide:
- Tom and David Gardner advise avoiding corn syrup-sweetened foods.
- Brian Gorman reviews one of the nation's largest corn syrup producers.
- Brian Gorman tells Coke to cut out the sweeteners.
- Alyce Lomax reports on how Coke and Pepsi are already moving to offer healthier sodas.
Do you watch what you eat? Looking for effective ways to shed pounds? Learn others' secrets to successful weight loss in the Fools Fighting Fat discussion board.
Fool contributor Rich Smith owns no shares of any company mentioned in this article.
