Aspartame: Sweetener used in Diet Coke possibly causes cancer, WHO set to declare
Aspartame is also linked in some studies to weight gain, GI disorders, mental health issues and more:
According to some studies, aspartame and other artificial sweeteners can lead to weight gain instead of weight loss 12. Aspartame has been linked to increased appetite, diabetes, metabolic derangement and obesity-related diseases 2.
One study showed that aspartame causes greater weight gain than a diet with the same calorie intake but no aspartame 1. Another study found that even acceptable daily intakes of aspartame might make you hungrier and lead to weight gain 3.
...some research suggests an association between aspartame intake and metabolic damage to the central nervous system (CNS), such as changes in enzyme and neurotransmitter activities 2. Aspartame acts as a chemical stressor by elevating plasma cortisol levels and causing the production of excess free radicals. High cortisol levels and excess free radicals may increase the brain’s vulnerability to oxidative stress which may have adverse effects on neurobehavioral health 3.
There is also some evidence that high-aspartame consumption may lead to weaker spatial orientation, irritability, depression, and other neurobehavioral conditions 14. However, these studies are limited in scope and further research is needed to determine the long-term effects of aspartame on human health.
Worth researching more, especially if you eat/drink anything with this stuff - and it's in a lot of food products.
It's not this straight forward. I read the reuters article about this that goes into more detail.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/whos-cancer-research-agency-say-aspartame-sweetener-possible-carcinogen-sources-2023-06-29/
But basically, IARC is only looking at if the substance can be carcinogenic, regardless of the quantity it takes for it to be harmful to humans.
There is another organization, called JECFA that is specifically for advice for individuals. This is where "food regulations" would come from.
The JECFA is set to show off their findings at the same time as IARC is gonna make their announcement. I feel like some of you guys are jumping the gun here due to the title of the articles coming out.
Click bait works, unfortunately.
Obesity is one of the leading preventable causes of cancer. Along with tobacco, alcohol, sun exposure, and red meat consumption. Aspartame is not a major cause of cancer in humans. If it helps you lose weight, then you're improving your cancer risk.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/
If it helps you lose weight, sure, but I think there is more going on when you realize cancer risk down but mortality up...
I'm entertained by this sentence from your source (great source, by the way): "No significant associations were found for cancer mortality." Lol
Also from your source, though, to dig deeper past the study title:
"Of note, participants in the highest levels of ASB intake were more likely to be overweight/obese, hypertensive, and hypercholesterolemic in most studies (8, 10, 11, 17, 28), and thus reverse causation was possible" meaning people already experiencing health-damaging overweight/obesity are also more likely to be replacing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) with artificially-sweetened beverages (ASB) which confounds the result that higher ASB intake is associated with higher all cause mortality. It may simply be that people who already had high mortality risk from their weight were also more likely to be consuming large amounts of ASB.
"Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials found that low-calorie sweeteners modestly but significantly reduced body weight, BMI, fat mass, and waist circumference (23), but had no effects on blood glucose and blood lipids compared with saccharides (39)"
"Although biological mechanisms remain inconclusive, some studies indicated detrimental effects of low-calorie sweeteners on the regulatory mechanisms of appetite and satiety, release of gastrointestinal hormones, gastric motility, and balance and diversity of gut microbiota, which may further increase energy intake and disrupt blood glucose homeostasis (40). Taken together, ASBs might be optional alternatives for SSBs only when they are consumed in small quantities for weight management, and the long-term adverse associations of high amounts of ASBs with cardiometabolic diseases and mortality should be considered"
"Based on current evidence, SSB intakes should be avoided, and if ASBs are considered as optional alternatives for SSBs, they should be consumed in small quantities (i.e., <1.5 servings/d). Nevertheless, further high-quality studies are still warranted, particularly on the long-term impact of ASB intakes, because of limited studies and low-to-moderate quality of the current evidence."
So overall, a little more nuanced and not quite the knock-out punch the study title might suggest.
Barbecue sausages are also carcinogenic. What matters is how much and in what doses. Hey WHO: Show me scientific, peer revieved, reproduced in independed labs papers with solid proofs. Not preliminary results of "one research". Then I will weigh pros and cons and decide if I should use it. Strangely decades of use under supervision of FDA and other reputable institutions had no remarks like WHO. Don't forget that dihydrate monoxide also promote cancer, and we all drink it like water.
/edit typo, grammar/
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/chemicals/aspartame.html
lol. The cancer folks think its fine.
Obesity is like the second biggest risk factor for cancers. This post reads like a non-medical professional's interpretation of medical advice. I don't mean to offend, because that is very common. But the information presented here is devoid of context in a way that makes it potentially misleading.
Honestly nothing can be more dangerous than the OG coke. The amount of sugar in that can is incomprehensible
This is another point that no-one makes. While it is clear that the best alternative to a sweetened drink would be water, often it is the "healthier and natural" version with real sugar which is just incomparably more damaging to human bodies.
Possible carcinogen is an extremely low standard for the WHO, this probably means close to nothing
Or you will need extreme quantities for it to be something. But with that said, the few times my daughter get a soda I buy her a regular even if I drink with sweetener.
The sugar is much worse for her though.
WHO is one of those organizations whose advice I wish I could take at face value, but with anything that should be science based, it only takes a few disappointing compromises to take away a lot of trust.
Like the one time they wanted to recommend member states to consider Traditional Chinese Medicine for COVID-19 treatment
And how their recommendations result in our country's maternity wards try acupuncture and breathing as pain relief first, leaving mothers in debilitating pain for hours before giving them any of the real, safe, proven painkillers.
I get the reasoning - that accepting the commonly held medical belief of e.g. China allows them to hold some authority there and be a more global force of good - but to me it just make anything they say go on the "ok interesting, I'll fact check it later" pile.
Worth point out is that it doesn't even reach the same classification as red meat which is classified as probably causing cancer.
theres a lot of things that MIGHT cause cancer i feel like if youre drinking enough diet coke to cause cancer its not the sweetener its your impulse control
Aspartame just like about anything is not good for you in large quantities. This probably doesn't concern you if you just drink moderate amounts of sugar free drinks.
Except fo the links of aspartame to weight gain, GI disorders, anxiety and more.
Links or proofs?
I was about to admonish you asking for a link to a linked article, BUT the author linked to a link aggregator.
I went through all the linked article's "abstracts." Nothing.
I went through a few articles. Best I found was the WHO recommending an overall less sweet diet.
I tried to read it to figure out what the quantities that are dangerous are. Might be an idiot but I couldn't find anything in the text that supported the title
Title of the document or title of this post?
And just to clarify, we're looking for links to evidence that aspartame has an effect on "weight gain, GI disorders, anxiety and more."
I sort of cringe (more of a nose wrinkle really) at OP's "it's known in some circles to be bad" You see beliefs and correlative evidence constantly misrepresented as proof and truth in food and medical science (reporting and discussion).
I get it. The body is a hugely complicated system, it's hard to figure these things out. What does even figuring them out mean with the amount of complicating factors of this affects that which affects this which causes this.
I'm open to the idea that lobbying and such means Aspartame (and other industrial food products) has really been pushed through.
It's also obviously been studied quite a bit and it's hard to believe all the studies saying it's safe at recommended levels are bunk or fraudulent.
This news was on another instance where the discussion included that the IARC carcinogen classifications do not take into account exposure/dosage. A whole bunch of things can be carcinogenic depending on exposure. Haven't we all read how the rats that got cancer from saccharine had epic doses? It was just magnitudes more than a human would consume.
If an observational study won't cut it (I see you, @xthedeerlordx, and appreciate your comment and explanation), how does one prove the causation? Don't you need randomized controlled trials which would be extremely onerous controlling for various factors and basically making the (ideally large number of) participants live in a lab for whatever amount of time the study takes to really prove causation? I'd genuinely like to know. It seems like for a lot of things correlation after correlation after correlation is the best we're going to get.
It's going to be difficult to fund a large enough RCT to find a stat signif effect - it would be very expensive to follow people for 20-40 years and keep them in a study (10 000 people?). Similar to supplement studies - they may be effective, however big pharma won't pay for RCTs for products that are already on the market and with little profit margin.
Unfortuantely, it's not all 100% science - politics has a large hand to play here.
As I wrote elsewhere, there was one review showing potential biochemical and physiological mechanisms. It doesn't prove anything, however due to the amount consumed, it is worth investigating further and keeping an open mind:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28938797/ https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/75/9/718/4101228
CONCLUSION
Current scientific knowledge about the safety of aspartame, as reviewed here, is based mostly on animal studies. These studies suggest that aspartame, even at recommended safe dosages, might not be safe. Several of these studies (in vitro as well as in vivo) that investigated both higher and safe dosages indicate that aspartame or its metabolites cause an oxidant/antioxidant imbalance, induce oxidative stress, and damage membrane integrity (lipid, protein, and nucleic acid), possibly affecting most cells and tissues. Aspartame is directly involved in the development of oxidative stress, which is a hallmark of systemic inflammation (Figure 3). Several animal studies have also reported a deleterious effect of aspartame exposure on body weight, adiposity, and/or glucose tolerance and insulin levels. These are summarized in a 2016 review by Fowler.125 Thus, there is a need for additional detailed human studies and comprehensive characterizations of the physiological processes affected by aspartame. This is of particular importance, as diabetic and other individuals with gut dysbiosis may already be at increased risk of systemic inflammation because of the inflammatory nature of their conditions. Data reviewed in this paper suggest that aspartame use could not only exacerbate existing systemic inflammation but also cause inflammation if healthy individuals ingest it on a regular basis.
Gonna try to cut a line down the middle and say I’m not seeing very convincing evidence one way versus another. Lotta finger pointing and honestly getting way more intense about diet soda than I thought anyone would.
Gotta say that my family (and me until high school) drink wayyy to much diet soda. Like sugar, or aspartame it’s a bit worrying and when you drink caffeinated sweetness all day you’re probably going to feel defensive about someone saying it’s gonna kill you.
I am a bit of the mind that it may only be significantly carcinogenic at super high doses, but who knows if anyone is getting those doses either from commercial beverages or mixing it in the same proportions as sugar in their iced tea
Was going to say, I'm all for changing my habits/thought processes based on scientific data/evidence, but I could've sworn this debate has been raging on for some time now. First it was declared that it causes Cancer, then it was declared well no there's not really enough evidence to support that, and now we're back to it does. But I have yet to see a definitive link in any study and even this article says "possibly."
Now, that being said I still avoid aspartame when possible, opting for Stevia whenever I have the choice. I just fear that this kind of back and forth tends to erode credibility through unsubstantiated whiplash with the general public.
As someone who would also very much like to believe that aspartame is perfectly safe, I will point out that in a controversy over "is this commercially sold product dangerous", the side that says "no" is going to get a lot more funding than the one that says "yes". Maybe there's some potential financial incentive for alternative sweeteners to boost aspartame-bad studies, but the aspartame-good group is very directly backed by behemoths.
These things aren't easy to prove and more research (from publicly funded sources) would be good, but when you're seeing a lot of confusing competing claims, keep in mind that industry funded research exists and it will be overwhelmingly on the side of "let us keep selling these very profitable products".
Sure, let's wait and see what they say.
If you drink soda, do look more into the weight gain, GI issues and anxiety side effects from aspartame.
If anyone's seen aspartame's wikipedia article, it's like the most corporate compromised entry I've seen. In fact this very report is already being covered up there.
Does aspartame cause cancer?
There was a study that found that Aspartame increased cancer risk, which was used as the base for all the current claims. The study was found to be flawed and it has not been reproduced since then, but due to confirmation bias and the desire to manipulate others the idea keeps communicating. That's one weakness of science, you can make up research and the average person will use it to confirm their biases, even if it's one study versus a hundred
That being said, there may be other risks with artificial sweeteners, I'm just talking about that specific study
Science is complicated and most people don't know how to apply it. For example, an university graduate does not know how to read published research and how to apply it to the real world, because beyond training that needs a lot of practice and feedback. People think that hearing the news or reading the paper will let them know the truth; it won't because they haven't developed the capacity to do so, yet they ask for a source they can't really understand. That's why you are supposed to go to a professional instead of doing what you think you should do on your own
The only people I've found that are worth giving sources to are PhDs or experts in their fields. Everyone else just fucks up interpreting them
Oh shit. I replied to the wrong comment. I only meant to post that other comment to yours. My b.
Full disclosure I'm going completely tangential for this one.
I find it believable at best that aspartame can cause cancer, but causing weight gain just makes no sense to me.
I used to be FAT. 250 lbs. I didn't really make that many changes to my diet, except for cutting refined sugars way back.
I switched to Diet Coke, got off the little debbies, and I slimmed right down and now I'm hovering around 135.
It would make sense to say that I would maintain that weight or maybe gained more if aspartame was as harmful as this article says, but I'm not seeing it.
"While aspartame is a low-calorie artificial sweetener that's often used as a sugar substitute in diet drinks and "sugar-free" foods, there is some research suggesting that consuming artificial sweeteners might paradoxically lead to weight gain. However, the evidence is not definitive and the topic is controversial. Here are some proposed mechanisms:
Altered Metabolic Response: Some research suggests that artificial sweeteners may interfere with the body's mechanisms for metabolizing sugar. Essentially, because your body expects sugar (and the corresponding calories) when it tastes something sweet, the consumption of low-calorie sweeteners may lead to increased food intake and a desire for sweet foods because your body is trying to get the calories it's expecting.
Changes in Gut Bacteria: There's also some evidence that artificial sweeteners, including aspartame, might alter the bacteria in the gut in a way that promotes weight gain and fat accumulation.
Increased Appetite: Some studies suggest that artificial sweeteners may increase appetite, leading to increased calorie consumption.
Psychological Factors: Some people may consciously or unconsciously consume more calories elsewhere in their diet because they believe they are "saving" calories by using artificial sweeteners."
I'd definitely buy the appetite increase. I think there is good research into how the brain perceives through taste and other mechanisms to understand foods as calorically dense (sweetness, umami, fatty) causes reinforcing/reward of eating behavior, making you eat more. [I really had to hold back saying "neural pathways". Always wanted to say that. I'm not really qualified to.]
This has the look that triggers my dietary literature skepticism, but it's not very diet-y, mostly just on the science and previous studies as far as I've read so far The Hungry Brain.
Luckily I find the taste of aspartame very off-putting. Please don’t take my sucralose.
Interesting. I can hardly distinguish aspartame and sucralose. Both taste disgusting. Give me my diabetes inducing high fructose corn syrup please.
Word, they all have that awful aftertaste, even stevia and xylitol have it. I don’t get where people are coming from when they say splenda is amazing, maybe there’s a genetic component to how I perceive it.
There are so many artificial sweetners in the market now.Even purely natural onea like stevia powders have maltitol added to it. It might be better to give up sweet things completely may be with the exception of fruits for better health.
That is if you go find fruits in their original form. Current grocery store fruit have been bred to be full of sugar. Bananas used to have large seeds. Sadly if you want to eat anything sweet you're just going to have to accept the fact that it's not healthy.
I think there are some fruits which have been around in different varieties. In India, we have so many varieties of bananas, some of which are less sweet. Then there are also seasonal fruits like JackFruit, Mangos , Papaya which are all quite sweet and are mostly in their natural form. Again there are so may varieties that we can pick the one most suited to our taste :). That said, such sweet fruits are still bad in large amounts.
So it’s like the list of carcinogens in California that everything is basically carcinogenic
Is this going to be like pork where it's a ~20% increase in cancer or like smoking where it's like a super huge increase?
It causes 37.7% increase not matter how much you consume of Aspartame.
/s
In for a penny, in for a pound! Diet Coke, baby! Yum!
I remember the pork thing, and also reading that infographic about how it's hypocritical to refrain from eating dogs and cats because those animals are smart, but to eat pigs and octopuses anyway despite their similar levels of intelligence. Things like these are what eventually set me on the path of embracing veganism.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Don't freak out (yet) people...
They put aspartame in the "possibly carcinogenic" category which is their least certain one. Also in this category we have... Radio waves (sigh)... Yeah right...
Radio waves are known to be harmful, that’s why the FCC maintains Maximum Permissible Exposure limits and every technician HAM has to learn about safe distance from a transmission source in relation to power and frequency. It is not a stretch that such RF exposure could potentially have carcinogenic properties, but that needs context, the likelihood of a cell phone is pretty much nil.
That's not how non-ionizing radiation works. The MPE exposure limits are because you can be effectively cooked, not because you'll get cancer. You need much more energy to do that, like UV light, X or gamma rays.
But now OP will realize he's been setting 5G towers on fire for nothing...
But this line of logic ultimately also ends at "how much aspartame do you need to ingest before it's bad for you?" A lot of these things end in "you need to consume an unreasonable amount for it to affect you negatively".
If 100mg causes cancer in 80% of test cases in one year, then it will be very difficult to study how 1mg will affect a group of people, as at lower doses, interactions may become more important.
If you have a shit diet, don't exercise, then a smaller dose of aspartame may be more potent- the effect may be additive. It would be too difficult to exclude confounding factors in such a study.
But luckily no one has the trio of a shit diet, drinks soda and doesn't exercise :/
I'm an MD and don't touch the stuff.
If 100mg causes cancer in 80% of test cases in one year, then it will be very difficult to study how 1mg will affect a group of people, as at lower doses, interactions may become more important.
If you have a shit diet, don't exercise, then a smaller dose of aspartame may be more potent- the effect may be additive. It would be too difficult to exclude confounding factors in such a study.
But luckily no one has the trio of a shit diet, drinks soda and doesn't exercise :/
I'm an MD and don't touch the stuff.
Regular and diet sodas are both clearly junk that humans shouldn't be consuming.
This is basically the case for every artificial sweetener lol
wtf I literally had a diet coke for the first time in my life the other day, and this comes up? Am I gonna get cancer now???
If you don't die of something else first, you're probably gonna get cancer I'm afraid.
Ok but for real though I had my first diet coke a few days ago (don't drink soda that much) and now I see this.
I am curious whether this will actually impact what is considered safe to consume on a daily basis.
Again, many things are unhealthy and carcinogenic in large quantities. The infamos study showed that Aspartame was causing cancer in mice but the amounts they were given would be like humans eating bags of it every day.
I'm not sure because I think more studies need to be done.
What I do know is I never liked diet coke or anything with artificial sweeteners. Never drank them. But when I got cancer I craved it. During chemo it was the only thing I could drink without issue. So there's that.
I hope you're doing well.
I was looking for more information on this topic and browsing this Study suggests association between consuming artificial sweeteners and increased cancer risk and chuckled seeing this in the section describing limitations:
Which I guess means the participants that had cancer later means the (undetected at time of study?) cancer made them consume more Aspartame? Sort of fit your anecdote.
Thanks, I'm doing great. I won officially in January. Now it just maintenance and scans a few times a year.
That's an interesting study. Thanks for sharing. Now I feel less crazy about it, lol.
Causes it, or possibly causes it? Seems like they should get their ducks in a row and find out conclusively?
There is no "conclusively".
What do you mean by "causes cancer"? Do you mean "any quantity at all causes immediate cancer in all people"? Because nothing does. Do you mean "some quantity over any time period causes cancer in some people?" Because almost everything does (just ask California).
The latter is probably closer to what they mean. But we don't consume gallons of aspartame daily for 50 years.
So the real question is "what is the risk when consumed in realistic quantities?" And it turns out there is almost no risk.
For context, this is the same designation that bacon currently has, amongst a whole bunch of other things we all eat.
Yeah, but bacon is probably like the unhealthiest meat you can eat. Its packed with sodium nitrites to retain its pink hue and is absolutely off the charts for actual sodium content as well as saturated fat, which makes up nearly 70% of its calories. If you were eating a 1kg pack of bacon the way I see people chugging a daily liter o cola, it would be incredibly unhealthy.
I love being a human lab rat for capitalist America 🙆🏻♂️
Hasn’t it already been proven to facilitate the development of Alzheimer? Honest question - I’m a layman in medicine and just worried about my dad chugging tons of diet products full of aspartame, thinking it’s the healthy choice (as opposed to non-diet lemonade for instance).
I don't know enough to disqualify the studies they cite, but I guess at least these folks seem to be the opposite of industry shills? There is an Alzheimer's section. US Right to Know: Aspartame
The Alzheimer's Association (safely covering their asses) defers to the FDA's approval but does note concerns have been raised. it's myth 5 here
IDK why people are so determined to consume that shit.
Because I like cold carbonated drinks, I like the taste of cola, but I don't like the thick, sugary, syrupy taste of actual Coke?
Surely you realize it's not because we have "aspartame cravings" or that we somehow think it's healthier (there's nothing healthy about Coke in any form anyway)...
I need my caffeine, but loathe the taste of coffee. So I drink tons of coke. If I drank the sugar variation, my size would be measured in football field units. With diet, I at least am not morbidly obese.
Looks over at his Sweet N Low packets 😬
(I know, saccharin vs aspartame)
So let's say we stop playing semantics to the degree of harm and say that aspartame is not good for humans. Ok. What sweetener currently on the market is the least damaging option for me to pursue?
Feels like there are 2 classes of sweeteners:
And whenever one in the second category becomes popular, it inevitably transitions to the first category.
Also, "proven" is a minefield these days. There are so many agents with so many agendas conducting these so-called medical studies. It's difficult to know what to trust. For example, for decades the sugar industry has been paying "scientists" to conduct dodgy studies into the effects of fat in your diet in an attempt to deflect from the true horrors of added sugar.
Probably regular sugar in moderation. Unfortunately moderation doesn't seem to be a word that food companies understand when it comes to sugar or sweetener. But if you drink coffee and add your own sugar, then that's probably the safest. At least your body knows what it is and how to deal with it.
I've found a better solution. Bypass the soda and just get sparkling water or seltzer and toss in your own flavor from natural sources. Lemon, grapefruit, mint, strawberries, cucumber, frozen grapes, etc.
I've basically completely over soda except in the case of a maybe once a month craving for something like a float.
Stevia, erythritol, xylitol.
In other news, blood Is red. Jk. In all seriousness we have known aspartame causes issues for awhile now
Yet to see conclusive evidence.
https://youtu.be/1WYbJZHucuM
^ Dr. Mike breaking it down
Artificial sweeteners always give me a headache after a certain amount. Now I know why.
Maybe ypu worry too much /unnecessarily snarky/... sorry ;-)
It's definitely bad for you. Original Coke is better but of course still not good.
I have kidney disease and whenever I drank something with aspartame in it, my body would reject it and push it out via my tongue, so I would taste aspartame for 2-3 days after!
Now I just don't drink any cold drinks at all. Water with a drop of concentrate (after checking ingredients) or water with a drop of fruit juice.
No it's not. Where are some reliable proofs for that?
Define "bad". People act like certain foods are "good" or "bad" when it's shades of grey and proabilities. One diet soda is fine. One "og" coke is fine. Drinking gallons a day? Likely unhealthy in any case (even water is unhealthy in large enough quantities).
In most studies of aspartame the quantities needed to 'cause' cancer are enormous. Whereas "normal" consumption of the amount of sugar in non-diet sodas is highly correlated with increases in obesity and diabetes across a population.
This is totally baseless statement and most likely false. Sugar as far as I know still way more deadly to humans than all the sweeteners combined.
Yet to see conclusive evidence.
https://youtu.be/1WYbJZHucuM
^ Dr. Mike breaking it down
America: nuh uh in fact aspartame gives you a 6 pack we just discovered