Warning! Drinking 10 litres of Coca-Cola a day will kill you!

 Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT
 

the funny thing is, if she had drank 10 liters of water a day, it probably would have killed her faster.

So in this case, we can put on the label "Healthier then water, if you consume it by the bathtub full."

New Zealander here.

This case has been pretty widely reported in this country, and the majority consensus is this woman and her family were idiots and her death, while tragic and a waste, was a surprise to nobody but the ridiculously stupid, and Coke is not to blame, because ten liters of WATER a day can damage your health.

A kilogram of sugar per day. 960 grams of caffeine per day. We're baffled by how nobody who knew her saw it coming.

I used to be dependent on Coke, then I switched to chocolate milk after seeing the damage done to my teeth. Even now I substitute my acute thirst with juices, milks and water. The most Coke I was on at any point was four liters a day and it made me terribly ill, and I did indeed get agitated by withdrawal.

Anyway. Her family can't sue Coke; that's just not how the legal system works in New Zealand. They've tried and were basically told to fuck off, and given a guilt lecture about their ignorance and lack of intervention resulted in their loved one's death, not Coke's 'irresponsible product ohnoes'.

"It's not specifically labeled to be unhealthy thus it's harmless to drink excessive amounts of it amirite?"

Someone toss this woman a Darwin award. ._.

The worst thing about this is that now people have more fire against coca-cola, like it's the worst beverage and only one that could cause harm.

I used to enjoy coca-cola (before I started my weight loss stuff which drops every liquid except water), it's no more harmful for you than a bottle of mountain dew... or any number of other soft drinks/sodas.

The sugar content in a bottle of coca-cola is almost identical to that of a "Flavoured, Natural lightly carbonated mineral water" and identical to pretty much every other soda on the market (fanta, lift, pepsi, etc etc) and there are plenty of other drinks that also have the same amount (or more) of caffeine in them but it always seems to be coke in the firing line and my guess is because it's the most popular.

Back when I was in school I did the whole "coke can clean a coin" test thing for a project, I got the same result with coke as I did with pepsi, mountain dew and a no-name brand mineral water soda... all the coins were cleaned.

Coke isn't any worse than other carbonated beverages!

Eleuthera:
Damn, at my worst I drank 1 (one) litre of Coke a day. And that was the point I decided I should probaly cut down a bit. But 10L? 10L of water a day will probably kill you...

Don't you mean drown you?

And the academy award for 'Best named forum thread of 2012' goes to: THIS ONE!!!!

But getting serious for a moment, it's astonishing that in this day and age people don't have the facilities to realise that drinking 10 L. of anything in one day is bad news.

jebara:

Eleuthera:
Damn, at my worst I drank 1 (one) litre of Coke a day. And that was the point I decided I should probaly cut down a bit. But 10L? 10L of water a day will probably kill you...

Don't you mean drown you?

excessive amounts of water intake will work as poison towards your body. Your brain swells up and bad stuff happens. On top of that your liver can't handle all the flow and will start getting into trouble too. The absolute max amount you can drink, for a shorter period of time, is around 1 liter pr hour. Considering we sleep for 8-12 hours a day, 10l a day doesn't leave much room for error in that field. And even then, 6L a day is still be excessive over a longer period of time.

So yeah, you don't drown, you actually get poisoned by the very thing we need in order to survive.

I love Stephen Fry. "Too much of anything is bad for you. Thats precisely what "too much" means!"

T0ad 0f Truth:
Well as far as I'm aware, Coca leaf is still illegal, even for non-cocaine related endeavors, so probably not? Though we do have jet packs, video games and teh interwebs, so maybe there's hope XD

Coca isn't exactly illegal in many Countries, in the US and UK for example it exists in a legal limbo. You can (could?) actually buy coca tea in small amounts (less than 100g iirc), of course if you wanted to try and make cocaine you would need hundreds and hundreds of boxes to get enough leaf material. Coca could also be argued as being a "better" stimulant than caffeine because of reduced side effects and a greater psychological uplift.

Whatislove:
The worst thing about this is that now people have more fire against coca-cola, like it's the worst beverage and only one that could cause harm.

I used to enjoy coca-cola (before I started my weight loss stuff which drops every liquid except water), it's no more harmful for you than a bottle of mountain dew... or any number of other soft drinks/sodas.

The sugar content in a bottle of coca-cola is almost identical to that of a "Flavoured, Natural lightly carbonated mineral water" and identical to pretty much every other soda on the market (fanta, lift, pepsi, etc etc) and there are plenty of other drinks that also have the same amount (or more) of caffeine in them but it always seems to be coke in the firing line and my guess is because it's the most popular.

Back when I was in school I did the whole "coke can clean a coin" test thing for a project, I got the same result with coke as I did with pepsi, mountain dew and a no-name brand mineral water soda... all the coins were cleaned.

Coke isn't any worse than other carbonated beverages!

Actually, Mountain Dew even has pretty much everything more than Coke, see here.

But I dispute the mineral water and sugar claim. Please show me one flavored water that comes even closely to actual soft drinks like coke. For reference: 350ml of coke have approximately 40g of carohydrates while a similar amount of Schweppes lemon lime flavored mineral water has about 25g, while others might be so low as 15g. Not to mention far lower sodium and no caffein.

And coin cleaning is done with acidic compounds, such as the carbonic acid that makes drinks fizzy or citric acid for that slightly sour taste. So I'm not surprised carbonated mineral water has some effects, though certainly not as good as vinegar.

10 litres. I think I'm going to vomit. I thought I was bad with a few cans a day back when I was a fanatic. That's totally ridiculous.

Family didn't know cola was harmful. He drank 10 liters a day it's abhorrently idiotic. That amount a day of any substance would kill you except air.

The worst I ever got was six litres a day, although I was averaging nearer three.

Demanding warning labels because you didn't think that ten might be a bad idea... you know what, if a packet of nuts has to carry a warning that says "MAY CONTAIN NUTS", this will probably happen.

Cyberbob87:

This reminds me of the case that resulted in the "Warning: Contents may be hot!" on hot beverage containers. A woman leaves a McD's Drive-Thru with a coffee between her legs, brakes suddenly and scalds her legs severely with the piping hot coffee. I believe she got a couple of million dollars in settlement too. Gotta love that suing culture - protecting people's stupidity for decades!

Apologies if this has already been pointed out, but that particular example, whilst often used, is not a great one to demonstrate the frivolous lawsuit culture we have in the west these days. Now I don't remember the full details of the case, but if memory serves - the coffee in question had been heated far beyond the legally allowed amount by the McDonalds, to the point that the woman didn't just get a bit scalded - she suffered 3rd degree burns.

Furthermore, the reason she was awarded millions was not out of greed initially, but because the initial suit for her medical and legal bills (which, again, I would say is pretty legitimate) and McDonalds were basically dicks about the whole thing (as I say, I don't know the details and am not a lawyer, so I can't say exactly WHY they settled on "Millions" as a fair amount), so the larger sum was a punitive measure against McDonalds.

Don't get me wrong, I despise the lawsuit culture of the world we live in (medical malpractice being one that particuarly angers me, as I have a mate who is a lawyer in that particular area, and he has some fucking outrageous stories of people making some ridiculous claims and either winning, or getting it settles out of court because the NHS can't afford to fight the suit and it's cheaper to settle).

On topic: I'm very much in the "darwin award for that bint" school of thought, as well as believing that our modern culture of requiring fucking warning labels on everything is taking the piss. Stupid people should be allowed to die out naturally.

As for myself... I love Coke, but I find these days that anything more than a 330ml can and I start to feel sick. Sweet things in general make me feel pretty rotten if I have more than just a bit.

Dr. Pepper, Cherry Coke, and Mountain Dew are my favourite of the carbonated, caffinated, sugar waters, however.

Quaxar:

Whatislove:
The worst thing about this is that now people have more fire against coca-cola, like it's the worst beverage and only one that could cause harm.

I used to enjoy coca-cola (before I started my weight loss stuff which drops every liquid except water), it's no more harmful for you than a bottle of mountain dew... or any number of other soft drinks/sodas.

The sugar content in a bottle of coca-cola is almost identical to that of a "Flavoured, Natural lightly carbonated mineral water" and identical to pretty much every other soda on the market (fanta, lift, pepsi, etc etc) and there are plenty of other drinks that also have the same amount (or more) of caffeine in them but it always seems to be coke in the firing line and my guess is because it's the most popular.

Back when I was in school I did the whole "coke can clean a coin" test thing for a project, I got the same result with coke as I did with pepsi, mountain dew and a no-name brand mineral water soda... all the coins were cleaned.

Coke isn't any worse than other carbonated beverages!

Actually, Mountain Dew even has pretty much everything more than Coke, see here.

But I dispute the mineral water and sugar claim. Please show me one flavored water that comes even closely to actual soft drinks like coke. For reference: 350ml of coke have approximately 40g of carohydrates while a similar amount of Schweppes lemon lime flavored mineral water has about 25g, while others might be so low as 15g. Not to mention far lower sodium and no caffein.

And coin cleaning is done with acidic compounds, such as the carbonic acid that makes drinks fizzy or citric acid for that slightly sour taste. So I'm not surprised carbonated mineral water has some effects, though certainly not as good as vinegar.

Sorry I should have clarified on the mineral water thing, here in Australia there are a bunch of drinks called "Natural mineral water" soft drink, which is advertised as a healthier option to other soft drinks/sodas and come in lemon/lime, raspberry and all the others you would expect - The difference between those drinks and coke (in a 1.25L bottle) is 2.2g of sugar more in the latter. There's barely a difference at all.

There are ofcourse healthier soft drinks available but in general the sugar content between sodas is pretty close.

Stu35:
(medical malpractice being one that particuarly angers me, as I have a mate who is a lawyer in that particular area, and he has some fucking outrageous stories of people making some ridiculous claims and either winning, or getting it settles out of court because the NHS can't afford to fight the suit and it's cheaper to settle).

To be honest this attitude leaves me just so slightly angry, I won a medical negligence claim from the NHS because doctors had four opportunities to diagnose something they should have easily been able to diagnose with basic examination but failed to do so. I came literally --> <-- that close to dying, it was only the phenomenal skill of another set of doctors that I survived. The incident traumatized me and my family and will be left with after effects for the rest of my life.

Most people pursuing medical negligence claims deserve the compensation, unless you believe incompetence that leads to death, pain, disability and suffering is acceptable and anyone subjected to that unnecessarily doesn't deserve something for that.

Well this puts a dampener on my day.

I usually drink around 2 litres a day, sometimes a bit more, but I've never reached 10 litres a day. O-o

I know it's bad for me too, but I really don't like the taste of water. Plus, y'know, the caffeine addiction.

I'm really surprised she didn't think this was dangerous.

I mean come on! You gotta have SOME limits.

sky14kemea:
Well this puts a dampener on my day.

I usually drink around 2 litres a day, sometimes a bit more, but I've never reached 10 litres a day. O-o

I know it's bad for me too, but I really don't like the taste of water. Plus, y'know, the caffeine addiction.

A spider-woman(?) after my own heart. Really, this is precisely my reasoning.

Loop Stricken:

sky14kemea:
Well this puts a dampener on my day.

I usually drink around 2 litres a day, sometimes a bit more, but I've never reached 10 litres a day. O-o

I know it's bad for me too, but I really don't like the taste of water. Plus, y'know, the caffeine addiction.

A spider-woman(?) after my own heart. Really, this is precisely my reasoning.

Right? People are all "But water doesn't taste of anything!" D:

Well maybe the taste of nothing tastes bad! ;_;

Well, thats just common sense. 10 litres a day is a lot. Just like every, 10 litres of water, 10 litres of orange juice, 10 liters of vodka, its common sense two much of something is dangerous.

Baneat:

CrystalShadow:

Caffeine. Caffeine is dangerous stuff.

If Caffeine were a major factor, this only amounts to the equivalent of drinking about a litre of coffee in a day.
That's about 5 cups.

How many heavy coffee drinkers drink more than 5 cups of coffee in a day?

Clearly, it's not as simple as that though is it.

1. Citation needed

2. I do, in fact up to 8 a day was greenlit by the FDA I believe. A starbucks vente is like 4 cups right there and not even counting any other caffeinated products you may be consuming.

3. Of course it's not, people clearly don't know how addiction works.

Lol.

Citation needed for what exactly? Quantity of caffiene in various kinds of drinks?
Lethal dosages of caffiene?

Nothing quite as helpful as following up a rough, unsupported statement with a vague, unclear question.

Still, let's go through some stuff just for the hell of it.

I'll include this primary source, though you can't read it anyway, so it's a moot point: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.2550060302/abstract

(a research paper on the toxicity of caffiene)

Here's the wikipedia article on caffiene. (The usual disclaimers about accuracy apply to using wikipedia, but still) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

"The LD50 of caffeine in humans is dependent on individual sensitivity, but is estimated to be about 150 to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body mass or roughly 80 to 100 cups of coffee for an average adult.[4] Though achieving lethal dose with caffeine would be exceptionally difficult with regular coffee, there have been reported deaths from overdosing on caffeine pills, with serious symptoms of overdose requiring hospitalization occurring from as little as 2 grams of caffeine."

In any event, the average drink doesn't have that much caffeine, but the lethal dosages are measurable in grams, which is a concern if you're handling pure caffeine, but probably not if you're drinking things that contain it.

Here, however, is probably what you were looking for though:

Caffiene contents of various drinks:

Coca-Cola: 96 mg/L

Percolated coffee: 386-652 mg / L
Drip Coffee: 555-845 mg / L
espresso: 1,691-2,254 mg / L

From this, it's easy to show that coffee has, by volume, roughly 4 to 23 times the amount of caffeine as Cola.

I used a factor of 10, which is sort of middle of the road, but not strictly speaking matching anything in particular.

I also estimated a cup of coffee to be 200 milliLiters. Which is actually on the small side. A typical cup or mug ranges from about 200 to 400 ml.

Anyway, taking the weakest estimates for coffee (aside from decaf), 10 litres of cola is about equivalent to 2.5 litres of coffee.

When the FDA says 8 cups of coffee is safe, what are they referring to though? Given the almost 6 times variation in caffeine amounts per unit of volume, that's not much of a guideline if that's all it says...

CrystalShadow:

When the FDA says 8 cups of coffee is safe, what are they referring to though? Given the almost 6 times variation in caffeine amounts per unit of volume, that's not much of a guideline if that's all it says...

The LD50 for caffeine is a joke but I refer to the fact that you take it for granted that 5 cups a day is dangerous w.r.t caffeine consumption. This is a claim I've never heard made with substance.

As with the company Apple sueing over the rectangular form of a Phone i think some People are trying to troll stupid Laws out of existence.

Headsprouter:
Have these people never heard of DIABEETUS?

How was she not dead a long time ago? Not that I'd wish that on anybody. Even so, Coke isn't to blame for silly, silly people.

THIS! That was the first thing that came to mind. She must have had some freakish insulin level to counteract that sort of sugar intake.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I did a Google Image search, and I couldn't find a LOL big enough.

Forrest Gump said it best.

So did Heinlein.

No more need be said.

OK, I understand that some things do need warning labels, but if you don't understand that drinking 2.5 gallons of coke a day will kill you than you deserve to die. We have to draw a line some where. That kind of stupidity needs to be purged from the gene pool. It's like putting a label that says "Do not point at face" on a nuclear missile.

To be perfectly honest, there is no way you can drink ten litres of soda a day and expect it to be healthy. Coke doesn't need to tell you that drinking that amount of its product is bad for you.

I imagine they'd be prudent in putting a small label indicating the safe daily dosage of caffeine near the other nutritional information, however.

its easier for idiots to claim it was unsafe because there were no warning labels because that is what all the idiots do, Thats why we have "do not eat" on anything that might possibly kill you.

The problem isn't the labeling system its the retards we've over populated the planet clearly were at no great loss if we lose a couple of people who drunk 10l of coke a day, Coke might lose some money though.

...Sad to say but my dad had a similar problem though in his case, it was Diet Coke. He seemed to develop an addiction when he was studying in university, and it carried on since. We think it was the caffeine. Unfortunately, me and my siblings learned by example and thus we all really like diet coke though at most I'll only have 250ml a day, maybe more on a weekend night.

Dad went into withdrawl a few times but it was mostly just sleepiness and lethargy, never shakes or anger. So yeah, warning labels. I don't know if it will make a difference or not but its something.

I knew a dude once who got a stomach ulcer from too much coke, the cola weakened his stomach lining enough that his own stomach acid was able to eat a hole in it. He had to stop drinking cola of course, and I guess it's sad the same ulceration didn't happen to this woman, it might have given her the wake up call she needed.

BTW leave the family alone, they're grieving, it's natural.

Whatislove:

Quaxar:

Whatislove:
The worst thing about this is that now people have more fire against coca-cola, like it's the worst beverage and only one that could cause harm.

I used to enjoy coca-cola (before I started my weight loss stuff which drops every liquid except water), it's no more harmful for you than a bottle of mountain dew... or any number of other soft drinks/sodas.

The sugar content in a bottle of coca-cola is almost identical to that of a "Flavoured, Natural lightly carbonated mineral water" and identical to pretty much every other soda on the market (fanta, lift, pepsi, etc etc) and there are plenty of other drinks that also have the same amount (or more) of caffeine in them but it always seems to be coke in the firing line and my guess is because it's the most popular.

Back when I was in school I did the whole "coke can clean a coin" test thing for a project, I got the same result with coke as I did with pepsi, mountain dew and a no-name brand mineral water soda... all the coins were cleaned.

Coke isn't any worse than other carbonated beverages!

Actually, Mountain Dew even has pretty much everything more than Coke, see here.

But I dispute the mineral water and sugar claim. Please show me one flavored water that comes even closely to actual soft drinks like coke. For reference: 350ml of coke have approximately 40g of carohydrates while a similar amount of Schweppes lemon lime flavored mineral water has about 25g, while others might be so low as 15g. Not to mention far lower sodium and no caffein.

And coin cleaning is done with acidic compounds, such as the carbonic acid that makes drinks fizzy or citric acid for that slightly sour taste. So I'm not surprised carbonated mineral water has some effects, though certainly not as good as vinegar.

Sorry I should have clarified on the mineral water thing, here in Australia there are a bunch of drinks called "Natural mineral water" soft drink, which is advertised as a healthier option to other soft drinks/sodas and come in lemon/lime, raspberry and all the others you would expect - The difference between those drinks and coke (in a 1.25L bottle) is 2.2g of sugar more in the latter. There's barely a difference at all.

There are ofcourse healthier soft drinks available but in general the sugar content between sodas is pretty close.

I see. Well, that's a rather fraudulent drink then. Maybe they should rename coke to Miracle Water while they're at it.

I guess we should start putting warning labels on all food. I mean, if you eat too many carrots you could probably pull a Se7en and rupture you stomach.

You have to be really stupid to think that drinking 10L of coke a day is not going to have any consequences.

So she ingested 10kg. Every day. (Only counting the cola, not the food she had to eat)

Christ, lady. 10kg of anything, every day, for 10 years, is bad.

Zhukov:

SecretNegative:
Some months ago here in Sweden a girl died because she drank three liters of water in one go.

The hell?

I know drinking too much water can kill you, but three litres should not hurt you. I know for a fact I can drink that much without an ill effects besides feeling uncomfortably full for a while.

If it was demineralised water, then that amount might be deadly. Water intoxication is the result of an electrolyte imbalance (specifically when your sodium levels are too low). Tap water and bottled water do contain some minerals, so the diluting effect is less pronounced. Also, we don't know how old the girl in question was.

To be fair, the coroner himself said that this woman is to blame.

*goes to find quotes*

"The fact she had her teeth extracted several years before her death because of what her family believed was Coke-induced tooth decay, and the fact that one or more of her children were born without enamel on their teeth, should have been treated by her, and by her family, as a warning," TVNZ quotes his statement as saying.

Although he did cover his own back by saying that maybe coca cola does need a warning label.

I mean, this woman was 30 years old, with children. Its not like a child drank that much without knowing. She was an idiot and its cost her.

I think EVERYTHING should come with a warning label, should go something like: "Behave like an adult and take some fucking responsibility for yourself"

 Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT

Reply to Thread

Log in or Register to Comment
Have an account? Login below:
With Facebook:Login With Facebook
or
Username:  
Password:  
  
Not registered? To sign up for an account with The Escapist:
Register With Facebook
Register With Facebook
or
Registered for a free account here