Any questions about the addictive nature of sugar, and the impact it has when excessive quantities are consumed, are answered in a story from the Otago Daily Times in Aotearoa of a woman who died at the age of 30 from a heart attack. Quite probably there would have been extenuating circumstances, but her consumption of an average of 7 litres of Coke a day is likely to have been a factor. The first thing she would do in the morning was have a drink of Coke and the last thing she would do in the day was have a drink of Coke by her bed.
‘Her partner Chris Hodgkinson said she was addicted to Coke and without it she would get moody, irritable and be low in energy. Yet, he never suspected that the beverage was making her ill. “I never thought about it. It’s just a soft drink, just like drinking water. I didn’t think a soft drink was going to kill her.”
Medical evidence stated that the main finding of death was from a cardiac arrhythmia. Dr Dan Mornin told the court Harris probably had severe hypokalemia, a lack of potassium in the blood, relating to excessive consumption of soft-drink. He said although it was difficult to confirm this from post-mortem tests, it was consistent with her symptoms of tiredness and lack of strength and other cases of heavy soft-drink consumers, and it was likely her daily vomiting was due to too much caffeine, medically known as caffeine toxicity.
If you can stomach it, read the full article here.
