Fizzy drinks 'as bad for health as tobacco'

Sugar-packed fizzy drinks are just as dangerous to health as cigarettes, health experts have warned.

Experts want hard-hitting public awareness campaigns to attack what they say are "manufacturers' misleading promotions that distract from the health risks".

"Emerging science on the addictiveness of sugar, especially combined with the known addictive properties of caffeine in many sugary beverages, should heighten awareness of the health threat similar to the understanding about the addictiveness of tobacco products," the Daily Express quoted public health expert Dr Lori Dorfman as saying.

Dorfman, from the University of California, and colleagues want soft drinks companies to stop "explicitly targeting young people" in an "aim to increase sales".

Drinking just two cans of fizzy pop a day has been shown to cause severe long-term liver damage, a condition normally the result of chronic alcohol abuse.

It can lead to victims needing a transplant because the liver cannot process the huge amount of sugar.

Too many soft drinks can potentially cause diabetes and heart damage as well as being a major contributor to obesity.

Diet drinks in particular have been shown to pile on the pounds because, even though they have fewer calories than regular fizzy pop, they can trigger the appetite to eat more.

Those who binge on diet soft drinks every day have been shown to have 70 percent bigger waists after a decade.

"There is no comparison to be drawn between tobacco and soft drinks," a spokesman for the British Soft Drinks Association said.

"Tobacco is harmful in any quantity and any reduction in consumption is a positive step for health.In the case of food and drink, it is the imbalance between calorie intake and calorie expenditure that is the cause of obesity and not the intake of calories as such, still less the intake of calories from any particular food or drink. These two situations are entirely different," the spokesman added.

Women can be more promiscuous than men!

A new study has suggested that when it comes to being sexually unfaithful while being away from home, women tend to rack up more lovers than men.

The UK Adultery Survey 2012 found that once women decide to play away, they are far more likely to play the field in search of love.

Research into the behaviour of 4,000 people suggested that women are more promiscuous, having an average of 2.3 secret lovers compared to a mere 1.8 for men, the Daily Mail reported.

While explaining their reasons to cheat, the men say the pursuit of sexual excitement, boredom with their marriages and the need of an ego boost are the main causes. Women say their reasons could be anything from looking for emotional fulfillment, an improvement to their self esteem to romance.

Women adulterers are also far more prone to falling in love with their illicit lovers than their male equivalents.

According to Emily Pope of Undercover Lovers, a dating site for married people seeking affairs with some 600,000 members, the survey's results challenged the general assumption that men are more adulterous than women.

"Once they have made the huge decision to have an affair, women have far more opportunity to actually find someone to cheat with and are generally in control of deciding if and when to consummate the relationship once they do," she said.

The survey also found that women are likely to be the first to get itchy feet in a marriage.