In case you needed another reason to '86' the soda pop, consider Bromism. It sounds like some terrible genetic condition, but it's bromine poisoning. Where is bromine in our food supply? Soft drinks. Why? Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to certain soft drinks, from citrus-flavored soda pop to certain energy and sports drinks, to create the slightly cloudy/citrusy appearance. And you thought it was because they use real citrus juice in that stuff.
I admit bromine wasn't on my radar screen, until I came across this article describing a mini-epidemic of bromism in fanatical gamers. The scenario unfolds like this:
- gamers may stay up for hours at a time, and it's a point of pride to use caffeinated soda, like Mountain Dew, to stay awake during these marathon gaming sessions.
- Mountain Dew contains BVO, so some of these people unknowingly guzzle a whole lotta bromine along with their caffeine and sugar.
- If they do this long enough, and they develop bizarre skin lesions, neurologic disorders, headache and memory loss, all symptoms of bromine toxicity.
The treatment includes going cold turkey off those soft drinks, along with possible drug therapy. In one case reported years ago, the patient had to undergo hemodialysis to remove the bromine from his system. He admitted to drinking 2-4 L of bromine-containing soda pop daily.
BVO is banned from food and beverages in many European countries. Not only can bromine cause acute toxicity in high doses, but chronic intake can lead to build up in fat tissue, as shown in numerous rat studies. Why is this stuff still in our food supply? Because according to the FDA, it's Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS), based on animal studies that looked for cancer and heart disease. Clearly there are other health problems besides those, but FDA testing doesn't consider every possible adverse reaction. What we seem to have is a population wide experiment in bromine exposure, with Dew-swigging gamers as the lab rats.
I checked out soft drink labels in the grocery store, and there it was on the ingredients lists of beverages like Mountain Dew, Fresca, Fants, Stewart's Orange and Cream soda, various fruity flavors of sports drinks like Powerade. Both diet and sugar-sweetened varieties have it. Drinking the occasional soft drink isn't likely to cause a break-out of bromism. Clearly gamers are drinking unusually large amounts, but could there be lower-level ill effects from 3-4 soft drinks daily? Or for a child drinking 2-3? Or a pregnant women drinking 3 or more diet sodas every day with BVO? The best advice: drink water. The second best advice: if you want to avoid BVO in soft drinks, check the ingredients list.
Here is a comprehensive article with more information about bromine toxicity.
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