Sodium Benzoate a common preservative in soft drinks may be doing you serious harm.

Molecular biology professor Peter Piper has been studing sodium benzoate for many years and recently commented "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether."

Sodium benzoate is a very common food aditive in Australia and appears as food additive 211 or E211 on labeling. It has previously been linked to Liver, Kidney and neuro - toxicity; asthma; gastric burning; hyperactivity; allergic reactions in aspirin and chemical-sensitive people and teratogen (birth or congenital malformations).

Prof Piper was alarmed by the findings from laboratory tests, conducted with sodium benzoate on living yeast cells. Which show this chemical's destructive impact on the "power station" of the cells known as the mitochondria.

He stated "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number if diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously," Prof Piper continued.

"There is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA — Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."

The additive has been the subject of controversy for some time. Last year it was revealed that a chemical reaction between sodium benzoate and vitamin C creates benzene, a carcinogenic chemical.

While the chemical occurs naturally in small amounts in cranberries, prunes, greengage plums, cinnamon, ripe cloves, and apples it is recommended that you should avoid consuming large quantities of foods containing the E211 additive.