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.

[+] MaxVoltage@lemmy.world -11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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 18 points 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 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 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 6 points 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.