Assuming it doesn’t dehydrate you, it can help keep you hydrated, and it will give you a slight lift, but as has already been said it is loaded with sugar, caffeine and other chemicals that you probably don’t need. Clean water is always better to drink.
In the world of road cycling back in the days before engineered sports drinks, flat Coke was the go-to sports drink because the caffeine and sugar gave riders a quick energy boost.
(FWIW, before energy gels and bars and such, Fig Newtons were the standard on-bike snack.)
Like all carbonated soft drinks, Coca-Cola is completely worthless and un-necessary in a healthy diet, and likely harmful. Only clever marketing has put any question to this. Any perceived benefit can most likely be found in cheaper and less harmful ways.
Refined sugar: unmitigatedly bad for you. No up side to refined sugar.
Caffeine: in moderation, the jury is still out.
Carbonation:can help digestion. Is extremely bad for your teeth when combined with refined sugar.
Water: good for you, no question there.
Moral of story: drink coffee or tea without sweetener, or water. If you like having enamel on your teeth, particularly.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization for a long time classified coffee as a probable carcinogen. That is a category where the evidence is weak enough that you might not want to consider it equally convincing. Still it is in the same category where the IARC classifies the risk from the herbicide glyphosphate/Roundup. Indirect cite from the American Cancer Society
The good news is that they took coffee off the list in 2016. The bad news is that they replaced it on the list with very hot water. Very hot water is greater than 65C/149F. Coffee brews above those temps. Pour a fresh hot cup of coffee and start drinking it right away and it is probably carcinogenic. As it cools it loses its carcinogenic effect for most of the cup.
Hot coffee might have a risk that Coke does not. Iced coffee avoids that risk.
I hadn’t done any actual research on the subject. I suspect some skewed results there, the cola studied combined results from sugared and artificially sweetened colas, the coffee study had no details on how much sugar was in the coffee or what else was in the coffee (besides beer i mean). If coffee does contain antioxidants than it probably is better for you than the cola within some parameters. If you are stuck with drinking Coca-Cola straight then you have no control over the parameters.
Another factor is that coffee tastes and smells awful to me, seriously nauseating, and if I had to drink it regularly it might end my own and other peoples lives early. So drinking cola is much healthier for me and everyone else in my case.
The original recipe for Coca-Cola called for an estimated 9mg of cocaine per glass. A typical hit of cocaine (line being snorted) is about 50-75mg. So yes it was in there, but not enough to get you really high from drinking one glass.
How so?
Apparently simple carbonated water can reduce nausea, alleviate constipation, improve swallowing, and a coupla other things.
cite: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/carbonated-water-good-or-bad
Also, reading a little more, turns out it isn’t just the sugar in colas that is so bad for teeth, it is also the phosphoric acid. Bad for your bones too (causes calcium to leach). Diet cokes are about as bad as sugar cokes dentally for this reason.
Really, seems like colas are some of the very unhealthiest things you can drink other than alcohol.
There are a lot of other ways to get caffeine than cola and coffee, if that is what you are after. Tea, maté, cocoa, no-doz …
Sugar isn’t evil, it’s just sugar. Sucrose, fructose, lactose, it’s all sugar. The only difference between ‘sugar’ and ‘added sugar’ is whether it’s naturally occurring or if it’s been added as an ingredient. The only thing is that it is calorie dense, but as long as you’re within your calorie budget, get an adequate mix of macronutrients, and don’t have a medical reason (like diabetes) to avoid sugars, then added refined sugars aren’t going to negatively impact your health.
Unless he was using all that Coke to wash down Pop Rocks candy it was likely just an urban legend.
Here’s another article on the potential benefits of coffee:
In theory, beer provides at least some nutrients and minerals:
Whereas Coke is, as previously noted, just flavored sugar water, and Diet Coke (or Coke Zero) is flavored water sweetened by a combination of artificial sweeteners that we think are harmless, as far as we know. Though I recall reading somewhere that artificially sweetened Coke may actually contribute to weight gain in ways that are not well understood. But it’s undoubtedly the right choice for those specifically looking to avoid sugar, since the amount of sugar in ordinary Coke is really quite high – nearly 40 grams (almost 10 teaspoons) in a 375 ml can. Compare that with maybe one teaspoon in a cup of coffee (I prefer around half a teaspoon).
That said, I love Coke Zero and though I don’t drink it often, it’s delicious and thirst-quenching over ice. The key is not to drink it to excess. I drink a lot more bottled water than Coke.
If I had to drink something all day long it would probably be iced tea without sugar.
One of the things I have found true for me is that if I replace something with a different, healthier, food/drink that fits into the same habit, I don’t crave the ‘lost’ thing. If I don’t leave a hole where my habit was, it works.
I would think phosphoric acid is not something I would want to pour into an ailing tummy.
Caffeine has “value” but I don’t think you would call it a health benefit.
When we stayed in Chiapas (southernmost Mexico) a liter of aguardiente rum and a liter of anonymous cola cost less than a single 375ml can of beer. Little limons were cheap too. Cuba libre, the breakfast of champions!
I haven’t tried dissolving metals, precious or otherwise, in cola. I hear that’s a thing.
If by “precious” metals, you mean silver, gold, and platinum, it certainly won’t work. Those are all very nonreactive.
When I was a kid the doctor would recommend Coca Cola syrup for a common tummy ache. The pharmacist would dispense it in a brown bottle with an official looking label. It seemed like it was prescription medicine although it wasn’t.
But it worked. It was very soothing and tasted a hellova lot better than castor oil or other concoctions your parents could give you. It completely ended nausea.
My wife and I find Coca-Cola helpful to reduce seasickness on long sea journeys. We never normally drink Coke, but always buy 2 x 500 ml bottles before getting on the ferry to France.
Clearly you haven’t tried Diet Ginger Lime. That’s Livin’!