***Soft drinks hazardous to your health

[Guest guest]

There have been warnings about soft drinks for some

time. Now things

are getting more serious than just sugar overload.

Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your

health.

Expert links additive to cell damage

By Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Published: 27 May 2007

A new health scare erupted over soft drinks last

night amid evidence

they may cause serious cell damage. Research from a

British university

suggests a common preservative found in drinks such

as Fanta and Pepsi

Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of

DNA.

The problem - more usually associated with ageing

and alcohol abuse -

can eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver and

degenerative

diseases such as Parkinson's.

The findings could have serious consequences for the

hundreds of

millions of people worldwide who consume fizzy

drinks. They will also

intensify the controversy about food additives,

which have been linked

to hyperactivity in children.

Concerns centre on the safety of E211, known as

sodium benzoate, a

preservative used for decades by the £74bn global

carbonated drinks

industry. Sodium benzoate derives from benzoic acid.

It occurs

naturally in berries, but is used in large

quantities to prevent mould

in soft drinks such as Sprite, Oasis and Dr Pepper.

It is also added

to pickles and sauces.

Sodium benzoate has already been the subject of

concern about cancer

because when mixed with the additive vitamin C in

soft drinks, it

causes benzene, a carcinogenic substance. A Food

Standards Agency

survey of benzene in drinks last year found high

levels in four brands

which were removed from sale.

Now, an expert in ageing at Sheffield University,

who has been working

on sodium benzoate since publishing a research paper

in 1999, has

decided to speak out about another danger. Professor

Piper, a

professor of molecular biology and biotechnology,

tested the impact of

sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his

laboratory. What he found

alarmed him: the benzoate was damaging an important

area of DNA in the

" power station " of cells known as the mitochondria.

He told The Independent on Sunday: " These chemicals

have the ability

to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to

the point that

they totally inactivate it: they knock it out

altogether.

" The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you

energy and if you

damage it - as happens in a number if diseased

states - then the cell

starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a

whole array of

diseases that are now being tied to damage to this

DNA - Parkinson's

and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but

above all the

whole process of ageing. "

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) backs the use of

sodium benzoate in

the UK and it has been approved by the European

Union but last night,

MPs called for it to investigate urgently.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat chair of

Parliament's all-party

environment group said: " Many additives are

relatively new and their

long-term impact cannot be certain. This

preservative clearly needs to

be investigated further by the FSA. "

A review of sodium benzoate by the World Health

Organisation in 2000

concluded that it was safe, but it noted that the

available science

supporting its safety was " limited " .

Professor Piper, whose work has been funded by a

government research

council, said tests conducted by the US Food and

Drug Administration

were out of date.

" The food industry will say these compounds have

been tested and they

are complete safe, " he said. " By the criteria of

modern safety

testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all

things, safety

testing moves forward and you can conduct a much

more rigorous safety

test than you could 50 years ago. "

He advised parents to think carefully about buying

drinks with

preservatives until the quantities in products were

proved safe by new

tests. " My concern is for children who are drinking

large amounts, " he

said.

Coca-Cola and Britvic's Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi all

contain sodium

benzoate. Their makers and the British Soft Drinks

Association said

they entrusted the safety of additives to the

Government.

http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2586652.ece

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