Maybe you have a favorite health drink, but if you know people who still consume soft drinks then you will want to share this news with them. Just look around and you will see the many ways that these bubbly little beverages are destroying America's health, but here are a few specifics.

1. Soft drinks work very much like a diuretic, robbing the body of essential hydration. A considerable amount of water is required just to process the high levels of sugar in sodas. To replace what is stolen, you need to drink 8-12 glasses of water for every soft drink that you consume! Health drinks made with all natural ingredients, on the other hand, help your body absorb water. This makes your water more effective in hydrating and energizing you.

2. The high sugar content in soft drinks can cause your pancreas to produce an over abundance of insulin, leading to a "sugar crash". You have probably felt this after a meal high in simple carbs like bread, pasta and dessert. Chronic elevation and depletion of sugar and insulin can eventually lead to diabetes. This is particularly problematic for growing children.

• Kids will consume health drinks if they taste good. Fortunately, there are some excellent choices made with all natural ingredients. We're not talking about those sugary enhanced vitamin waters loaded with isolated vitamins from a lab, but beverage mixes made with whole food ingredients from real plants and fruits.

3. Soft drinks interfere with digestion. Caffeine and high amounts of sugar virtually shut down the digestive process. Your body expends all its energy to process those things while other nutrients go to waste. That means you are essentially taking in NO nutrients from the food you may have just eaten, especially if you are chasing it with a soda.

4. Diet soft drinks contain Aspartame, which has been linked to depression, insomnia, neurological disease and a plethora of other illnesses. The FDA has received more than 10,000 consumer complaints about Aspartame. That's 80% of all complaints about food additives. This is prompting many people to take a closer look at stevia sweetener. Stevia is an herbal product that is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, and has been shown to help people maintain normal blood sugar levels. Stevia sweetener has zero calories, it is all natural and adds quite a bit of flavor to health drinks without causing problems for your pancreas.

5. Soft drinks are so acidic they can leach aluminum from the cans when sitting on the shelf too long. Alzheimer patients who have been autopsied have high levels of aluminum in their brains. Soft drinks can remove rust from a car bumper or other metal surfaces. Imagine what they do to your digestive tract as well as the rest of your body. The Acid forming properties cause your body to work extra hard in order to balance pH. The human body naturally exists at a pH of about 7.4. Many soft drinks have a pH of less than 4! Experts and books such as "The China Study" describe how diseases flourish in an acidic environment. For example, the blood pH of cancer patients and those with other illnesses is almost always low.

For those concerned about pH balance, take the Alkaline Food Test at BestHealthFoodStore.net to find out how the choices you make today influence your pH balance and your well being for life.

It is easy to see how the problems caused by soft drinks are part of the health care crisis in America. It is also quite apparent that this is an easy issue to solve. If everyone in America drank natural health drinks instead of soft drinks, the health of this nation would greatly improve. Obesity rates would go down, diabetes would be slashed and some arthritic problems would virtually vanish. It may sound too good to be true, but just take a look at the ingredients in soft drinks. You will see that the good life is not in one of those well advertised, colorful, bottles of bubbly.

Cliff Smith is owner of an online health food store that offers all natural foods and health drinks not sold in retail stores. Cliff is also a professional actor and serious athlete who is constantly researching the best nutrition for athletes.