• null_@lemmy.world
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    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.com
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      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.world
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        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

        • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          The presence of chlorine does not make a chemical toxic.

          Are you a chemist in the sense that you run a drug store?

        • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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          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.

        • fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You are saying that sucralose (or a metabolite thereof) could alkylate DNA - and theoretically proteins too - correct? Like what sulfur mustard gas does?

          I did a quick search and couldn’t find any papers demonstrating a mechanism of action for that, although I skimmed a few that postulated that a dichlorinated hydrolysis product might be the true carcinogenic agent. Do you know of any studies that demonstrate that the alkylation can happen, either in vitro or (ideally) in vivo? Or maybe some better search terms to use, that could be my issue…

          I am truly curious about this, I never knew the chemical structure of sucralose until I read your comment and subsequently looked it up.

    • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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.com
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        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.

        • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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          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.

        • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          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?

          • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            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.

        • NRoach44@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I’m going to agree with Burstar here - if you’re setting out to prove that something is possible, you’re going to give it the best chance you can. Once you know its possible (whether its something like using an arduino to simulate an old price of hardware, or if a compound can cause cancer), you go and refine it down.

    • else@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Also note most people are choosing between sugar and aspartame or another sweetener, and sugar is pretty much categorically a health risk for humans.

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Nail on the head. Aspartame is still better for you than super processed foods loaded with sugar. This reminds me of the big smear campaign against fat that the sugar industry engineered to take the heat off of themselves way back when

    • ryannathans@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • Indie@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    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?

  • wildchandelure@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Misleading title. They’re about to declare it as possibly cancerous. Not fully cancerous. And if anything this is just to get even more research into it.

    Aspartame is in a lot of things, mainly sodas and gum, but you’d have to consume a lot of the stuff beyond a human limit really.

    I do think this may put a dent in sugar free products assuming it gets declared as such.

    • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      1 year ago

      Probably just enough for California to give it that label, and that’s about it.

      I hate the chemical aftertaste of artificial sweeteners anyway.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      There’s still other zero calorie sweeteners though. Sucralose, stevia, saccharine, Monk fruit extract, etc.

    • SweetBilliam@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Every paragraph of that article got less and less certain about the results. Someday I’d love to be able to trust the headline.

    • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They’re about to declare it as possibly cancerous. Not fully cancerous.

      What do you mean by this? Everything that can cause cancer is declared “possibly cancerous”; it depends on dose and exposure. Nothing is “fully cancerous” for whatever that might even mean. You can be exposed to radiation and either get cancer or not; it depends on the dose. Would you call radiation “possibly cancerous”, or “fully cancerous”?

      Analagously, most bacteria can cause infections but they don’t always in everyone. So to label a bacteria as purely benign or purely dangerous is just as silly as trying to make a distinction between “possibly cancerous” and “fully cancerous”.

      Aspartame is in a lot of things, mainly sodas and gum, but you’d have to consume a lot of the stuff beyond a human limit really.

      And if someone wants to minimize their risk of cancer, they should be able to make informed decisions. Knowing that at particular food-additive has higher-than-baseline chances of causing cancer allows someone with a different risk-aversion profile to make decisions wisely. If you don’t mind the incidence rate at the dose you consume it at, that’s fine as well. But it is useful to have it be public knowledge if something is potentially cancer-causing.

      • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It means that Aspartame is going to be added to the “Group 2B” classification list. It’s worth noting that “Red Meat” and “Alcohol” are in the much more severe “Group 1” list, so you should probably give up steak and beer before you ditch your favorite diet soda.

  • s6original@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

          • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            “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.

    • Omega@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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)

  • outbound@lemmy.ca
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    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)

        • spauldo@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          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.

  • watson387@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Dammit… I’ve been drinking that shit every day for years. I actually crave the flavor of it.

  • puppet@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I could be wrong, and I’m too lazy to Google at the moment, but I swore this was made public information long ago. When I was young, aspartame was being phased out in favor of sucralose. I recall hearing stories about aspartame being banned in other countries as a child.

  • 𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚@feddit.win
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    1 year ago

    Hopefully there’s more research done. It doesn’t sound like it’s “absolutely carcinogenic”.

    The “radiofrequency electromagnetic fields” associated with using mobile phones are “possibly cancer-causing”. Like aspartame, this means there is either limited evidence they can cause cancer in humans, sufficient evidence in animals, or strong evidence about the characteristics.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/whos-cancer-research-agency-say-aspartame-sweetener-possible-carcinogen-sources-2023-06-29/

  • Hazzardis@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Like how cancerous is it? Considering the amount of diet pop my family consumes…I’m kinda worried

    • SimpleDev@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m pretty sure the last I read about this it was an absurd concentration that showed to potentially cause cancer. Nothing a human could drink in such concentrations.

      That being said maybe that’s changed very very recently, I’ll be interested to see what their actual findings are.

      A lot of things potentially cause cancer in huge concentrations.

      Edit - From what I’ve read aspartame would be considered a possible carcinogen in the same class of Coffee. That doesn’t make quite the same headline though hah!

        • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Lead was used way past discovering it was dangerous, and is still used enough to cause problems in specific populations. Just like cigarettes. If there is a large moneymaking industry and it suddenly comes to light that what it is producing is dangerous, they have a lot of motivation to put money behind keeping that knowledge from getting out or, when it does, keep it from affecting law. They lobby/bribe, they abuse the legal system, whatever they can to avoid going under. As such, it’s not safe to assume that something is not dangerous simply because it hasn’t been banned.

    • charles@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re probably just dehydrated from drinking a small amount of soda instead of a larger amount of water.

  • Fredselfish @lemmy.ml
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    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.

      • Fredselfish @lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Can Diet Soda Increase the Chances of Dementia? June 12, 2019

        Share:

        Can Diet Soda Increase the Chances of Dementia The artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas—and thousands of other processed foods—are anything but sweet. In fact, they can be toxic to the brain. Consuming these sugar substitutes on a regular basis is not a recipe for a healthy memory.

        Sherry, who weighed over 200 pounds on her 5’5” frame, guzzled diet soda thinking it would help her lose weight. It didn’t. Even worse, she started experiencing a host of symptoms—digestive issues, arthritis, forgetfulness, and confusion. In fact, Sherry’s diet soda habit was hurting her brain and putting her memory at risk.

        That’s what a growing body of evidence shows. For example, a study in the journal Stroke found that drinking diet soda was linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

        4 Ways Artificial Sweeteners Steal Your Mind

        1. Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters. One of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, aspartame is particularly damaging to the brain. Consider how it impacts aspartate, an excitatory neurotransmitter associated with memory as well as learning and pain perception. Aspartame stimulates this neurotransmitter. This may sound like a good thing, but in excessive amounts it overstimulates it, turning it into a potent neurotoxin that damages neurons, causes cell death, and is associated with a host of issues including memory problems and dementia.

        https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/can-diet-soda-increase-the-chances-of-dementia/#:~:text=Aspartame overstimulates neurotransmitters.,as learning and pain perception.

        Also my brother and dad were heavy drinkers of diet Coke I saw first hand experience of ut affecting their memory. With my dad we literally thought he had dementia. Then we cut it off and over time he got better.