Infographic: Is Coke bad for you?

It’s a pretty well-known fact that drinking soda isn’t the best thing for your body, but a new infographic fromThe Renegade Pharmacist shows all the horrible things drinking Coke does to your body — allegedly.

And it ain’t pretty.

The infographic is a detailed step-by-step breakdown of what the Renegade Pharmacist claimed will happen to your body the from the second you take your first sip of Coke, to an hour later when you’ve peed it out and crashed from your caffine high.

Who’s the main villain? High fructose corn syrup.

“High fructose corn syrup is found in pretty much all processed foods such as ready meals, fast foods, sweets and fizzy drinks and most people are totally unaware of its danger,” Niraj Naik, The renegade pharmacist, wrote on his website.

“When I advised people to reduce their consumption of high fructose corn syrup by eating lower carb/higher protein diets free from processed foods, even if they say they are healthy options, they started to lose weight and feel much better as a result.”

So what does Naik claim happens to your body when you drink coke? Here’s the timeline he wrote:

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
>60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

Matt Lee is a Web producer for Metro New York. He writes about almost everything and anything. Talk to him (or yell at him) on Twitter so he doesn’t feel lonely@mattlee2669.