this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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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/
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
The presence of chlorine does not make a chemical toxic.
Are you a chemist in the sense that you run a drug store?
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.
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.
Also note most people are choosing between sugar and aspartame or another sweetener, and sugar is pretty much categorically a health risk for humans.
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
Is that a measurement relative to mass/size? Because if not, you'd need to consume a shitload of it to really do anything.
There's a ton of studies with these problems. Researchers simply engrossing the test subject in the material until something bad happens. Unless you're researching on a test group of humans, then suddenly all the levels are actually less than typical.
It all depends if you're looking to prove that it's harmful or not. Want to find it's harmful? Get a bunch of mice and expose them to as much of whatever substance you need to in order to find a problem.... Want to prove something is safe, set up a "double blind" study of the effects on humans, and give half of them regulated and limited doses of it for weeks or months until you can convince everyone that "nothing bad happened".
I have a problem with research done in either way. Researchers should be neutral, and just test and let the data speak for itself. (With limited interpretation for the people who read it)
Instead, almost all research is funded by someone with an agenda who is trying to find out if x is good/bad, and prove or disprove a specific stance. Argh
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.
Hello Cocacola CEO