Soda is terrible for you. We know this. But I never thought drinking a crisp beverage from a shiny, perspiring can was as bad as smoking cigarettes. New research says it is! According to this study, drinking a 20-oz. soda every day ages your cells as much as habitual smoking, an astonishing 4.6 years of aging at the cellular level.

The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, analyzed data from 5,300 Americans, ages 20 to 65: those who reported daily soda slurping were found to have significantly stunted telomeres. Telomeres, the little caps at the end of your chromosomes, are essential in regulating the lifespan of your cells, and shorter telomeres have been linked to shorter life spans, diabetes, and cancer.

Who still cracks a Sprite daily? A lot of people, apparently. Americans drink 44 gallons of soda a year, according to Beverage Digest. That’s down 20 percent since 1998, but even so, it’s still enough to bathe in.

The negative aging affects didn’t carry over to drinkers of diet soda, which is why the gentleman in the photo above is so happy.

Don’t be an average American. Keep your telomeres long. Avoid soda (and cigs). And remember: death is lurking around every corner of the supermarket!

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