I get this all the time at the doctor’s office, but they never say what the particular mechanism is that *makes* it bad for you. So, what is it? Is it just “empty calories”? How can that have a negative impact on your kidneys (I hear a lot that drinking soda will give me kidney stones)?
I’m in ELI5, but ELI15 or even ELI25 would be preferred (non medical student level, though)
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Other than specific diseases, very moderate consumption of soda isn’t going to be bad.
Our brains are pretty hardwired to find sugar pleasant to consume. This was because sugar is necessary for energy production and sugar was, before modern times, very hard to come by.
The problem is that, for many people, modern lifestyle is less physically active and we tend not to exercise to get overweight and unfit. This is exactly where overconsumption of sugar becomes bad.
Most soda is basically sugared water. It has no other nutrients (proteins, vitamins, etc) and because we tend to like sweet things, it is very easy to overconsume. Note that one can of 330ml soda typically has 140 calories of pure sugar and a regular healthy diet should probably be in 2000 – 2500 calorie range or less unless someone really exercises a lot. So one or two cans of soda is already more than 10% of the recommended daily calorie intake.
If someone is healthy, exercises a lot, eats an otherwise healthy diet, then having soda once is awhile is probably quite OK.
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