Coca-Cola is probably the most well-known sift drink brands on the planet. They are also one of the biggest companies, so bug infact that they even own other companies.
Recently coca cola has been celebrating the boom in the energy drinks market in South Africa and the rest of the continent, but health experts are worried Africans could be drinking themselves into diabetes, hypertension and heart disease through energy drinks.
The beverages , which has a partnership with the Monster energy drink brand and is its official distributor in Africa, says energy drinks are the fastest-growing products in its portfolio in the region and they are still growing.
Scientists have for many years been saying, energy drinks are not ideal for prolonged consumption because they contain some products that are very unhealthy if taken too much. Namely sugar, caffeine, sodium and other additives.
Karen Hofman, the director of Priceless SA, a research-to-policy unit at the University of the Witwatersrand has said, “Liquid sugar is particularly harmful and toxic to the system and very addictive. In addition to that, many of these people are drinking alcohol at the same time,” .
That is a recipe for disaster and “It is very much a precursor to diabetes and hypertension which is costing the country billions. It’s a burdain to both the medical care system, which can’t afford it, and their families.”
South Africa’s has a sugar tax in such products, which has been in place since 2018. This tax has had a somewhat positive effect and has seen mostly cold drink manufacturers decrease the sugar of their products or introduce “zero sugar” variants that replace the item with artificial sweeteners. This has largely not been the case with energy drinks.
Under the sugar tax, manufacturers of sugary drinks are charged a levy on the sale of their products. This makes the products w bit more expensive. It is in the hope of discouraging consumers from the products as part of the government’s health drive.
In May 2021, the first scientific evaluation of the Sugar tax was published in the journal Obesity Reviews.
The authors of the journal said it was paying off, with South Africans buying 28% less sugary drinks than they did before, and thus reducing their sugar and calorie intake.
But Hofman is of the opinion that, South Africa’s sugar tax on energy drinks has not been that much of a deterrent to the consumption of energy drinks because their target market is already used to them costing more than other fizzy drinks.
Reduce the intake of energy drinks to protect yourself.
Content created and supplied by: Xīnwén (via Opera
News )
, . , . () , , , , , , , , . / , and/or . , , and/or , and/or