According to a celebrity fitness trainer who has worked with stars like Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston, sugary sodas are more harmful to your health than cocaine.
Sebastien Lagree has spent more than 20 years shaping Hollywood’s top movie stars and coaching them through fitness routines and diet plans.
No matter what customer he is, he tells everyone to avoid three things: microwave meals, fried foods and, most importantly, soda.
Mr Lagree told : “Soda is the worst.” Cocaine is illegal, but soda isn’t? In my opinion, sodas are worse than cocaine.”
The trainer attributes this to the massive amounts of chemicals and added sugars in sodas, which researchers had previously said have similar effects on our brains as hard drugs.
America’s favorite soda pop, Coca-Cola, contained cocaine when it was invented in 1886 – back when it was legal. However, it was removed shortly after the turn of the century.
Celebrity fitness trainer Sebastien Lagree said soda is worse than cocaine and artificially sweetened drinks aren’t much better when it comes to nutrition
Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston are among the celebrities that Mr. Lagree has coached
When asked if anyone could change their diet simply by giving up soda, Mr. Lagree replied, “Absolutely.”
Earlier this month, rapper Post Malone revealed he’d lost 65 pounds just by not drinking soda. “Soda is so bad.” “It’s so good but so bad,” the rapper-singer said on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Researchers have previously told that highly processed foods such as donuts, sodas, cereal and pizza should be classified as drugs because they produce compulsive use and mood-altering effects on the brain.
Mr. Lagree also believes that soda pop is a “significant contributor” to the rising rates of diabetes, obesity and related diseases in the US due to the massive amounts of added sugar these drinks contain. Some have up to 65 grams in just 16 ounces.
This is significantly more than the American Heart Association (AHA) recommended daily limit of 24 grams for women and 36 grams for men.
Factoring in the sugar from other foods you eat throughout the day, soda lovers often find the limits well above the legal limits, and too much added sugar has been consistently linked to health problems.
In fact, a review published in April in the journal BMJ linked high consumption of added sugar, the type of sugar in all these drinks, to 45 negative health outcomes.
These include diabetes, gout, obesity, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, cancer, asthma, tooth decay, depression and early death.
Harvard University researchers followed a group of nearly 100,000 American women over the age of 50 for over 20 years.
They found that women who drank one or more sugar-sweetened sodas a day were 85 percent more likely to develop liver cancer than women who drank less than one soda a week.
People who drank soda every day were 68 percent more likely to die from liver disease than those who drank three or fewer times a month.
RANKING of America’s 25 Sweetest Drinks: Mountain Dew had the most sugar of any drink on the list, while Brisk Lemon Tea had the least. However, all of the drinks were either well above or close to the recommended daily sugar limit set by the American Heart Association
While most doctors say sugar-free sodas are healthier, Lagree doesn’t think artificially sweetened drinks, which have come under criticism because the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the artificial sweetener aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic,” aren’t much better.
“Now we have artificial sweeteners, so no this, no that, but I’m not sure if that stuff is any better for you,” he said.
“I also don’t like it when all the chemistry is in my body.”
Instead, his drink of choice is plain.
“Nothing is better than water,” he said. “You can’t go wrong with that.”
He also prefers chicken, seafood, and a variety of vegetables and grains to fried and microwave foods.
Mr. Lagree believes it’s crucial to focus on exercise and diet at the same time, rather than overcompensating for junk food at the gym.
“You can’t beat a bad diet,” he said.
Brazilian researchers released a study earlier this week suggesting that one in five premature deaths in the South American country is due to processed foods.
Alexandra DiFeliceantonio and Dr. Ashley Gearhardt called for regulation similar to nicotine.
In 1988, Dr. Charles Everett Koop, who served as US surgeon under President Ronald Reagan, wrote a 600-page report on nicotine addiction.
Back then, more than half of US adults smoked cigarettes, but the long-term effects of their consumption were relatively unknown.
dr Koop used three key indicators: compulsive use, mood alteration, and mood enhancement to determine that nicotine is an addictive substance.
dr Gearhardt and Dr. DiFeliceantonio also applied the standards for determining that nicotine is an addictive substance to highly processed foods.
The first was compulsive consumption, which they described as a person who wanted to drink sodas and eat these other foods despite being aware of how unhealthy they are.
“People want to lose weight, they diet, and the vast majority fail,” said Dr. Gearhardt to .
“They have a hard time doing that even when they know it’s going to kill them.”
She blamed the fat and sugar content of foods for triggering an addictive response in the brain.
While more research is needed on junk foods to find out exactly how they affect the brain, she believes the speed at which the body processes them may play a role.
These quick hits are similar to how nicotine, alcohol and cocaine work throughout the body, the researchers said.
The high sugar and fat content of these foods also affects the dopamine receptors in the brain.
The research couple describe it as a “psychoactive” effect that a person can only achieve by consuming more processed snacks – just like with other drugs.
Processed foods also have a “boosting” effect, as a person may seek out the foods even when they don’t need to.
dr Gearhardt gave the example of a person with healthy food in their fridge who chose to buy chocolate ice cream because of their addiction.