The WHO is about to declare aspartame can cause cancer. Here’s why you should listen.
www.vox.com
Get ready for an earful about the health risks of Diet Coke, Trident gum, Equal, and other sugar-free items.
  • null_@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    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:

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17805418/

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • ██████████@lemmy.worldEnglish
        02·
        1 year ago

        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

        • 133arc585@lemmy.mlEnglish
          01·
          1 year ago

          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.

    • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          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?

        • 133arc585@lemmy.mlEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          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.

  • outbound@lemmy.ca
    1·
    1 year ago

    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)

  • Indie@lemmy.fmhy.ml
    0·
    1 year ago

    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?

  • Fredselfish @lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.