I make my own soda by starting with a very strong guarana tea, mixing it with an equal amount of brown sugar to create a syrup base. This syrup keeps in the fridge for weeks. When I’m ready for a drink, I add a few drops of lime or lemon juice (or just a slice of the fruit), a tablespoon of the syrup, and soda water. The result tastes almost like Coke.
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How industrious of you!!!
I always flavor my water with something or I don’t drink enough.
I tried this for potential gut health when I was in the kombucha aisle. I know I should have ferments but I always feel guilty about all that sugar (but my impression is also kombucha sugar might not be a problem, but I just don’t know!). I also have to drink kombucha early so the caffeine doesn’t interfere with my sleep.
(I did the ZOE gut test and learned that even thought I eat TONS of fiber and plants, I have a lacking gut for some strange reason)
At Kroger … they are $2.00 each. Seem like a relatively benign drink as far as that goes - and getting 9 grams of fiber in a drink is pretty good! Had my vintage cola today, tomorrow will be the root beer.
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TWO dollars!!! Excellent!!! Obviously, I need a better town!!! At $2, I might have two a day :). Honestly, I could drink these all day but worry about the sugar adding up… it took me years to break my sugar addiction !!!
So far, root beer is my favorite!
PSA: for those of you not used to fiber, the internet says Olipop can cause a lot of discomfort!!!
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The general rule with fiber, if not already >30-40 grams per day, is do not escalate amounts by more than 5 mg/day and wait a week before dose escalation again. The gut bacteria require time to adapt.
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Rapadmin posted this study in another thread:
The use of a PDE5i in combination with nitrate medication in men with stable coronary artery disease may pose an increased hazard for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Careful patient-centered consideration before prescribing PDE5is to patients with cardiovascular disease using nitrate medication is warranted. […]
Nonetheless, a number of studies have shown that the combination of nitrates and PDE5i infers a drop in blood pressure.
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2023.10.041
This made me wonder: if you eat a diet high in nitrates and/or potentially supplement with for example beet root powder and take a PDE5i, could this potentially have similar side-effects? Of course the patients discussed in this publication had stable coronary artery disease (CAD), but since most of the population would have some degree of atherosclerosis… Would this be a concern?
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I’ve never seen natural nitrates cause problems with PDE5i’s. They don’t drop your blood pressure like prescription nitrates (nitroglycerin, idsosorbide mononitrate, etc). However, anyone with known hypotension shouldn’t take PDE5i’s.
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It’s certainly possible that eNOS gets somewhat less active with aging, but it still works, so I don’t agree with you that arginine and citrulline won’t help older people produce more NO. I suspect the bigger problem with aging is that eNOS tends to get uncoupled, which results in it producing harmful superoxide instead of NO. In such cases, increased arginine and citrulline can cause increased superoxide production and consequently oxidative stress. However, if this uncoupling is addressed, then increased intake of arginine and citrulline should increase NO not superoxide, unless of course the person already gets a lot of both arginine and citrulline to begin with.
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10g Citrulline malate + 100mg pycnogenol 2h pre exercise or “play time” + a 1g arginine pill / 1h pre exercise is something worth trying. You definitely feel it’s effect
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