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 14 points 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 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 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 10 points 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.