Brown Soda Raises Cancer Risk, Johns Hopkins Says

I’m never going to be able to fully enjoy a Diet Coke again after reading this news out of Johns Hopkins: The chemical that makes soda brown also has the unfortunate side effect of basically being a carcinogen. 

4-methylimidazole (4-mel) doesn’t do anything other than give soda that lovely caramel-y brown color. That doesn’t really seem like a good enough reason, though, considering that it also raises the risk of cancer. Researchers found that between 76 and 5,000 cases of cancer over the next 7 decades will be caused by 4-mel alone.

In other words: Maybe it’s time to switch to Sprite.