There is a lot of public misunderstanding of the rodent studies that linked aspartame to cancer, which are very flawed and essentially come from a single Italian research group.
There is still no definitive link to cancer risk in humans so I would continue to be skeptical. The maximum recommended safe exposure for aspartame is the equivalent of 12 cans of coke, and the strong effects from the rodent study were using exposure amounts equivalent to 5 times that amount, or 60 cans daily, every day of their life after day 12 of fetal life (i.e. before birth).
Almost anything can cause long-term health risks and toxicity at such massive exposure levels.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/chemicals/aspartame.html
Link to the free Pubmed link to one of the original source studies from 2008 so you can see their methodology and the absurdly massive exposure amounts needed to ovserve these effects:
the strong effects from the rodent study were using exposure amounts equivalent to 5 times that amount, or 60 cans daily, every day of their life after day 12 of fetal life (i.e. before birth).
This is why I hate rodent studies. They always up the exposure to whatever they are testing to hyper-extreme limits. Then point their flawed results to the world and declare “See! X causes Y!”
There are even similar rat studies for marijuana that try to link it to cancer as well, despite the fact that zero people have actually died from weed. It’s all overblown bullshit.
Dude have you seen how many diet Cokes people drink? Liters and liters daily. Not excessive at all honestly considering LifeTime total exposure
Im a chemist by trade. This is actually chemically very simple. I only looked deeply into Sucralose Splenda. So I’ll discuss that
These have Chlorine molecules. A very electrophilic element even in a chemical bond. Meaning it can cause reactions in other molecules very easily. Sucralose has Three Chlorines. If it touches DNA it’s bad business man.
I love diet Coke btw lol I could drink 5 gallons right now idk I smoke cigs. But don’t sugar coat it
Table salt has more chlorine by mass than sucralose. Moreover, in your body, table salt dissociates into a chlorine ion, whereas in sucralose it’s covalently bonded into the molecular structure. That’s not to say that it is suddenly nonreactive, but being covalently bonded tempers some of it’s electron craving, so to speak. By your logic, table salt should be orders of magnitude more dangerous than sucralose (it’s not).
Edit to add: Do you know of any mechanism by which sucralose could cross the nuclear membrane? If not, sucralose isn’t going to be touching DNA at all. It could touch some form of RNA in the cytoplasm, which isn’t necessarily innocent, but it’s not going to be touching the DNA. That means it won’t cause long-term genetic changes or damage; any damage it caused would be transitory to the working set of RNA and that damage would be gone when that RNA was processed/destroyed.
I disagree with the ‘massive’ exposure ‘needed’ to observe these effects exaggeration. First, the point of the study was to show it can be carcinogenic, not to parse at exactly what level in humans. Second, effects are seen at the 400ppm level which equates to 20mg/kg. This is 1600mg/day or 8 cans of Diet Coke (@200mg/can) for an 80kg male. That is NOT an impossible level of daily consumption for many.
I suspect further research was done to confirm your linked studies and refine exactly at what minimum levels of daily consumption elicit carcinogenic effects. That will likely be in the full report once released. Until then, you sound like you don’t want it to be true, rather than an impartial evaluator of the research.
Apple seeds can kill you in large enough quantities
Found the cigarette smoker
the point of the study was to show it can be carcinogenic
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people. But, that doesn’t prove anything or serve a point.
Second, effects are seen at the 400ppm level which equates to 20mg/kg. This is 1600mg/day or 8 cans of Diet Coke (@200mg/can) for an 80kg male. That is NOT an impossible level of daily consumption for many.
In rats! You can’t just multiple a rat study by body weight and expect it to always correlate. That’s why studies are done in larger animals, and sometimes the concept just dies there.
A single study is a statistic. Until they duplicate the results multiple times, and upgrade to monkeys, pigs, or (in a safe way) humans, this is all just noise.
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people. But, that doesn’t prove anything or serve a point.
This is how science is done friend. You make no assumptions. You have reason to believe a theory predicts a testable outcome? You test it. Not everything causes cancer. Pure air doesn’t… Clean water doesn’t… The research shows us Aspartame does indeed have carcinogenic effects in rats. Now we know this, and the result can be used to support applications for more costly research using subjects much more similar to our anatomy because if it is carcinogenic in one mammal, it probably is carcinogenic in others.
You call the study flawed when it looks perfectly fine to me for the purpose it was designed for. It shows it is carcinogenic in the mammal it was tested on at dosage levels that translate to non-‘massive’, quite reasonable consumption rates for humans. As such, it warrants concern and all these claims by the European and US Food Agencies saying ‘we did 100s of studies decades ago and it is fine trust me bro’ is not enough. I’m not arguing this one study proves Aspartame causes cancer in humans. I’m saying your particular criticisms of it are unfounded as is your confidence that Aspartame is non-carcinogenic. You cite FDA claims ‘Aspartame is safe’ but show no research that supports this conclusion. Looking at the provided links I noticed things like “don’t feed to pregnant mothers because phenylalanine”, “methanol is a metabolite - nothing concerning there”, and ‘we plan on doing a systemic revaluation of aspartame as the research is over a decade old (the whole time with the biggest corporations in the world breathing down our necks)’ https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/factsheetaspartame.pdf
Looks to me like somebody did more research and found contradictory results otherwise why would WHO say they are going to do this?
You cite FDA claims ‘Aspartame is safe’ but show no research that supports this conclusion. Looking at the provided links I noticed things like “don’t feed to pregnant mothers because phenylalanine”, “methanol is a metabolite - nothing concerning there”, and ‘we plan on doing a systemic revaluation of aspartame as the research is over a decade old (the whole time with the biggest corporations in the world breathing down our necks)’ https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/factsheetaspartame.pdf
I do? Which post do I claim anything? What links did I provide?
My whole point is that one flawed study with rats doesn’t prove a damn thing, and is not enough to make a decision on.
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people.
It would lead to death, but not to cancer. Not everything is carcinogenic, even with high exposure. Causing death by a method other than cancer doesn’t make it carcinogenic.
Still proves it may cause cancer, the only thing seriously in question is the dose. Seemingly nobody knows what a safe upper bound is for any population.
At some point you gotta stop believing some theories and listen to the science.
I don’t think you can put “the” before WHO unless Roger Daltrey approves it.
I worry about a lot of the additives used today. Some products will say “no sugar added” but will include some artificial sweetener that you only see in the fine print.
Which is no sugar. So wheres the Problem?
No sugar added should mean no sweeteners added, but that’s not the case unfortunately.
“Unsweetened” means no sweeteners added. “No sugar added” means no sugars, but maybe other sweeteners.
“Unsweetened” is a subclass of “no sugar added” though, and so if you’re really looking for “unsweetened”, you still have to read the labels of all of the “no sugar added” products that chose that (more generic) label over the (more specific) “unsweetened” label.
I worry about the “natural” sugar alternatives. We all know that aspartame is safe, it’s been researched about as extensively as it can be. It only starts to be a concern when you’re drinking 2 dozen diets sodas daily.
But people give “natural” a pass for some reason.
Natural is always good, my cereal has natural uranium for a spicy natural alternative to sugar. It’s totally safe.
(For legal purposes, this comment is a joke)
As a Type II diabetic:
fuck
As a punk:
All I wanted was a Pepsi
Just one Pepsi*Diet Pepsi contains sucralose, not aspertame, so I guess I’m good (for now)
Hah, I got that reference. “I’m not crazy. You’re the one that’s crazy.”
There’s a new version by Ice T. He just wants to play Xbox.
Just looked it up on Youtube. Holy shit, that was amazing. Perfect update to the original. It doesn’t have the punch the last verse of the original did, but otherwise it’s fantastic.
Also causes memory lose.
For those that downvote because you didn’t want to do so basic research. Here https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/can-diet-soda-increase-the-chances-of-dementia/#:~:text=Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters.,as learning and pain perception.
But again this is one source. There are others first heard about it from Reddit. But I also have first hand knowledge of the effects because my brother and father were heavy drinkers of the stuff and definitely effected their memories.
deleted by creator
Source: just trust me bro
Ah yes the noted scientific journal amenclinics.com/blog
Unassailable source there, bud.
But he knows 2 people who drank some diet soda and later had memory issues! You can’t dispute those numbers!
Didn’t they suggest that aspartame could cause cancer way back in the late 80s or early 90s?
I remember growing up hearing about something like that when sweet and low was the go to sugar.
It seemed to kind of just fall of the face of the earth and is resurfacing now?
According to the article, yes, comprehensive studies showed it was strongly correlated to brain tumors back in the 90s. However big companies lobbied and did their own “research” to bury the studies that quite conclusively showed aspartame caused cancer.
Well, I guess it’s time to throw those lawsuits at the big companies that buried it with their conflicting studies, similar to big tobacco.
The shit we seem to put up with by corporations so their shareholders can gain some more on their millions. Humans suck.
Fancy seeing you here
2009scape gang
Saccharine (Sweet 'n Low) was the big scare back then.
It turned out it did cause cancer… in rats… if you force fed them some crazy amount like 400x normal.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/artificial-sweeteners-fact-sheet
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185898/
“humans would need to drink the equivalent of 800 twelve-ounce diet sodas with saccharin daily to reach the carcinogenic doses that induced rat bladder cancer.”
So… The typical American amount.
