Drinking Soft Drinks can cause you to excrete stones and weaken bones - Zain Abbas

Phosphoric acid is a compound found in almost all soft drinks people drink. This compound falls under the corrosive mineral category and classified as an inorganic acid (Gad, 2005, p. 414). The two processes by which you can make this acid is Wet process and Thermal process (Shakhashiri, n.d. p. 1). In the wet process, a phosphate rock is mixed with sulphuric acid and the product is large quantities of phosphoric acid. This is then added to fertilizers. The thermal process takes the element phosphorous from phosphate rock and burned in air, then water is added to make phosphoric acid (Shakhashiri, n.d., p. 1). The acid made from thermal process is then added into our detergents, medicine, and food (Shakhashiri, n.d., p. 2).. This acid is also present in our water softeners where it removes calcium and magnesium from our water to make it ‘soft’ . In our food such as beer, jams,

soft drinks, and jellies, the tart acidic flavour is because of the phosphoric acid added to them. When we digest this acid into our tissue, phosphoric acid can cause multiple problems in our body. A study shows that if a person drinks two or more cola drinks per day, they can double their risk of kidney disease. The acid is also associated with kidney stones. So, drinking coca-cola can cause the kidney to develop small white solid ‘rocks’ in your body that have to be pushed out of your body through urine. U.S. department of health and services report that the pain this causes can be severe depending on the size of the kidney stone (2013). The phosphoric acid can also lower your bone density because bone needs calcium and this acid can remove calcium from your bone thus causing hypocalcemia which leads to weaker bones.

Reference

Gad, S. (2005). Phosphoric acid. Encyclopedia of Toxicology (Second Edition). 414-415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-369400-0/00761-4.

Kidney Stones. (2014). Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blausen_0595_KidneyStones.png

National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC). (2013). U.S Department of health and Human services. Retrieved from http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/stonesadults/.

Shakhashiri, (n.d). Chemical of the Week Phosphoric Acid, H3PO4. Retrieved March 17, 2014, from http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek/pdf/phosphoric_acid.pdf.