You might just wish to think again prior to drinking another soft drink: research reported in the Britain's Independent newspaper states that a common preservative used in fizzy drinks may switch off essential parts of your DNA. The preservative may bring on premature aging and even trigger certain diseases which are commonly associated with old age.

The preservative in question is none other than sodium benzoate, which is regularly used by the multi-billion dollar global soft drink industry. It is derived from benzoic acid, and it is known to prevent mold in drinks like Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc., and is also used in pickles and sauces as well as other products.

Alarm bells have already been going off about it, since it has been discovered that when it's mixed with vitamin C in soft drinks, it creates the carcinogenic substance benzene. Now British Professor Peter Piper of Sheffield University has sounded an even louder alarm — his tests appear to prove that benzoate damages DNA in the energy-producing mitochondria of cells.

"These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether," Piper said. "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."