Stop Drinking This Today
Imagine a place where sweet, bubbly fizz flows more freely than water...
It's like a real-life Candy Land that would make Willy Wonka jealous.
And it's right in Mexico.
The small state of Chiapas holds the dubious honor of having the highest Coca-Cola consumption... in the whole world. And compared with the national average of per capita Coke consumption each year, Chiapas can drink the rest of Mexico under the table – five times over. In fact, residents have better access to Coke than they have to clean drinking water. It's even used regularly in religious ceremonies. As a result, Type 2 diabetes runs rampant in that town.
But this soda-pop problem isn't limited to just Chiapas...
While not as extreme, America is one of the top five soda-drinking countries in the world. And you don't have to drink much to harm your health...
Just drinking a single 12-ounce can of soda at lunch contains enough added sugar – eight teaspoons – to immediately puts you over the American Heart Association's recommended daily limit. (That's nine teaspoons for men and six teaspoons for women.)
That hefty dose of sugar spikes the sugar and insulin levels in your blood.
Make this a daily ritual and eventually your body becomes insulin resistant and riddled with inflammation. Plus, high sugar consumption rewires your brain, messing up the reward circuits and ultimately making you more likely to keep leaning into super-sugary and fatty foods.
As a result, you raise your risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and, yes, Type 2 diabetes. In fact, knocking back a can or two of sugary soda per day raises your diabetes risk by 26%.
Unfortunately, lots of folks think they can outsmart their sugary-soda habit by turning to diet versions instead. No sugar, no problem, right?
Wrong.
Regularly sipping on diet beverages puts your health in the crosshairs of the same diseases, like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
But about 1 in 5 Americans drinks diet soda every day. That's despite a plummet in diet soda sales that hit a 30-year low in 2015. Coca-Cola responded by "reformulating" its Coke Zero product... and brought sales back up.
It's just a show. Don't let the ads fool you. Diet soda is still an unhealthy habit. Having one or two occasionally is fine. But chugging a few every day is extremely dangerous.
That's why, if you or someone you know still indulges in a diet soda habit, I want you to pay attention to what some of the research has to say...
If you're under the impression that it's safe to swap out water for the sugar-free stuff, think again... A recent study found that diet soda is no substitute for Mother Nature, especially for those already struggling with diabetes. The small study followed 81 obese, diabetic women over 18 months.
These women were also regular diet-beverage drinkers. And among the group that replaced their diet drinks with water, a staggering 90% of the participants saw remission, whereas just 45% of women in the diet-drink group got rid of their diabetes.
A brand-new study involving hundreds of thousands of people over a decadelong follow-up period found that a daily habit of any kind of soda can end up seriously harming your liver.
Involving 103,251 healthy U.K. Biobank participants followed over a 10-year period, researchers found that drinking about a can a day of regular or diet soda was linked to a higher risk of developing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Roughly a third of Americans suffer from it, though likely more do – this is a silent disease, where unhealthy amounts of fat build up in the organ with no symptoms at first.
(For Retirement Millionaire subscribers reading this, make sure you didn't miss my latest issue where I covered five fatal myths about liver disease. Not a subscriber? Get a full month of access, risk free.)
What's more, we've also learned from research that even a single can of Diet Coke can alter your gut bacteria.
That's a problem because these bacteria do more than digest our food. They control our moods, regulate our blood sugar levels, and even control our immune systems. Our gut bacteria also break carbohydrates into short-chain fatty acids. These acids regulate hunger and fight inflammation. So protecting our gut bugs helps keep our whole body functioning well.
Finally, it's ironic how drinking these faux-sugar beverages in an effort to cut calories can end up derailing your "diet" anyway...
A Nature Metabolism study published this spring found that constantly guzzling these zero-calorie beverages can end up making you feel even more hungry, mainly by interfering with perceiving and regulating hunger cues in your brain. And according to researchers, that effect is greater among folks struggling with obesity.
To ease up on that sweet tooth, I recommend a slow switch to make things easier, like swapping out one of your daily sodas with water flavored with fruit or flavored sparkling water. Or try gradually adding more water to dilute the soda you're drinking.
Finally, I've said it before, but I don't mind repeating myself: If you've got a sweet tooth, stick to fruit. The fiber in the fruit helps to slow the absorption of sugar... And you'll get all the health benefits of fruits, too, like vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
What We're Reading...
- Did you miss it? Artificial sweeteners aren't the "healthy" answer to sugar.
- Something different: How one Mexican city struggles against "Big Soda" for drinking water.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
October 21, 2025