Which menu do you serve your cells?

Cola Junkie

The main character of this story didn’t seek help at the clinic himself. It is a tough story but it is brought to you with the full support of the parents. Because, as they say, it leaves you thinking…

He went to see a doctor in his home country because of stomach pains. Different tests revealed stomach ulcer or “something” with the pancreas which wasn’t quite right. The problem was not alcohol as he didn’t drink particularly much.

At that moment he wasn’t interested in treating the problem anymore tan taking pills for the stomach ulcer. He did not pay anymore attention to his pain. He gave a damn and moved to Costa del Sol, where he worked as a cook at one of the biggest hotels west of Malaga. He impressed and made a career of it quickly. He meet a sweet girl and moved in with her. Lived life and appeared to be satisfied.

When he visited his parents, who also lived at the coast, he often with fishing with a six pack, not of beer, but of Cola – of the big bottles. They would all be gone when he proudly came home with what he had caught and, as the great cook he was, he surprised his parents with his imaginative preparation of the fish.

He himself didn’t eat. “Later”, he said. He had given this answer a lot while growing up, and the next day his plate would still be untouched in the fridge.

The father said that when they met at a café for a cup of coffee, the son would already have emptied his first cola and would have ordered another before any of them even got to putting sugar in their coffee.

If there was a party in town he would stick to cola – and he had just as much fun as all those who were drinking alcohol. He was skinny, took good care of his girlfriend, did well as work and enjoyed his fishing trips.

The menu of the day for this chef was cola and cigarettes. His hunger was satisfied through the sugar in the cola, the caffeine quickly made him feel awake and the nicotine of the cigarettes also minimised the hunger.

The brain lives off sugar and when it is satisfied, the feeling of hunger for food to build up muscle, bones, skin and inner organs stops.

Through these cola transfusions there was a constant activation of the body’s insulin, attempting to regulate the blood sugar. As the caffeine simultaneously flowed through the blood, pressuring and stressing the body to always convert the sugar. In the long run this affected the body’s fight hormones which got tired. His body was tired and drained, because it only got its quick fixes and no nutrition to build up the body. In short: The caffeine and sugar give an initial satisfaction however it slowly drains the body in the long run.

In coma

All of a sudden he was sent to the emergency room at the university hospital of Malaga with stomach pains and blood in his vomit. He had gotten yet another stomach ulcer, and this time his pancreas and liver were largely damaged. He went into a coma and was in a respirator for some weeks.

The best experts did everything they could to manage the ulcer in his stomach, but the tissue was very fragile and porous so this was not easy. He had one blood transfusion after the other but the blood ran right through him. The doctors tried one last time, by ‘cementing’ the hole, hoping that the body was able to repair itself. For a moment it appeared to work. He started waking up and the first thing he asked for when he was out of the respirator was – a cola!

At this moment – after internal treatments and life support – he was fairly stable and the parents went back to their home country as they had an obligation to go. To days after their departure they got a call that their son had had a relapse and had deceased. He got 35 years old.

The doctors later explained that his tissue was so fragile that it simply couldn’t stay together anymore and the reason for this were the many colas.

Many of us have experimented with putting a tooth in a cola for a night, to discover the next day that the enamel – and at times the whole tooth – was gone. The young chef’s story is an extreme example of how badly it can go when cola becomes a lifestyle and a manner of nutrition.

He could have learned to live with his colas and not off of them. It is actually possible to tailor a healthy and nutritional diet, where there is space for diversions, while still providing the body with the necessary nutrition. One however needs to start early. It is the daily menu which dictates how your cells, hence also your tissue are doing, as well as what you think and feel. Get in touch with what you like and what your cells need – if the two go hand in hand, you are assured a vital menu for both weekdays and the weekend!