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Cola-nial mentality bashed

FILIPINO painter Antipas “Biboy” Delotavo’s Itak sa Dibdib ni Mang Juan (Bolo on Old Man Juan’s Chest) depicts a glum, wiry old man bowed before a portion of a billboard for a popular softdrink. The brand name has a stretched out capital C about to be stuck like a blood-soaked kukri knife into the man’s chest. That’s brutal vignette. Seething yet subtle visual commentary, too.

Indian photographer Sharad Haksar blew up his snapshot of colorful pitchers lined up in front of a hand pump before a wall painted with an advertising pitch for a soft-drink, “Drink …… The blown up picture was mounted as a billboard in Chennai city in southern India wracked with drought in summer months.

Apparently, it takes seven liters of water to crank out a one liter bottle of the popular softdrink. Which can be outright mass murder of people in drought-prone areas.

On top of that ironic dig at the softdrink multinational, local papers played up news about Indian farmers routinely spraying their fields with the same softdrink as it contains traces of pesticides.

The latest flak is fact: a study of more than 2,500 adults examined by Dr. Katherine L. Tucker and colleagues of Tufts University in Boston links cola consumption to weak bones in women.

Exercising care so as not to hurt corporate pride of global softdrink outfits, Dr. Tucker and company reported that women who consumed cola daily had lower bone mineral density (BMD) in their hips than those who drank less than a serving of cola a month.

We can risk the risque implications. Low BMD ties in with fractures—too fragile hip bones in cola-guzzling females imply that their nether skeletal parts cannot withstand the intense jackhammer vibrations of lovemaking.

That means cola-drinking can be downright ruinous to a woman’s sex life.

The researchers pinpointed the culprit ingredient in cola: phosphoric acid. This acid effects dagdag-bawas in bone mineral density. Phosphoric acid impairs absorption of calcium—the mineral make-up of bones-- and increases excretion of the mineral.

The researchers cited that no evidence was found that occasional cola-drinking can be harmful to bone.

Menfolk can breathe a sigh of relief: researchers pointed out that cola consumption had no effect on bone mineral density in men. Matitigas pa rin ang buto.

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