• Question: does drinking the soft drink lilt reduce your sperm cells

    Asked by cewis to Enda, Jean, Kate, Kev, Tim on 15 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Jean Bourke

      Jean Bourke answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Hmmm I seriously doubt it. I’m sure if you drank 2 or 3 litres a day it would probably reduce your sperm count, mainly due to deteriorating health. Lilt probably does contain some things that are bad for you at low levels, but then again pretty much everything does! No joke, everything is bad for you in high doses, even water (thought very difficult) and vitamins! You body is really good at dealing with these things though. When you eat something it is absorbed from your stomach and intestine s(gastrointestinal tract) but will go to your liver before it goes anywhere. Your liver has load of enzymes in it to break down poisons and toxins. Chocolate can be bad for animals but because our livers are so good it’s fine for us (unless you eat several kilos in a short time).

      So in conclusion no because our livers are great!

      Also, lilt is delicious!

    • Photo: Enda O'Connell

      Enda O'Connell answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      Hi Cewis,

      I had never heard of this before, but a quick Google check returned over 200,000 results, so I dug a little deeper because you can’t always believe what you read on the Internet.

      It seems this myth (because it isn’t actually true thankfully) has been around a while and is as a result of Lilt containing an artificial food colouring called Tartrazine, which is also known as E102 or Yellow Number 5. The same rumour went out in America as Tartrazine is used in another soft drink there called Mountain Dew.

      A rumour went around in the 1990s that Tartrazine caused decreased sperm count and reduced penis size, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this. Also, Tartrazine has been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has been in use since 1916 so there should be mountains of proof if it was having an effect on penis size and sperm count.

      There are lots of myths of this type around and I would really recommend a book called “Don’t swallow your gum” which “debunks” or disproves a lot of them, including “chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years”, “you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day” and one we’re all guilty of “if you pick up food within five seconds of it hitting the floor it’s safe”.

Comments