Aspartame is safe in limited amounts, say experts after cancer warning
theguardian.com
So maybe the huge worry people had after the news that WHO would classify it as cancerous was a little too much. I think the media could have reported on it in a bit more responsible way.
Not a shock.
Food scares are almost always over blown (except obviously tide pods).
People thought MSG was going to kill everyone. People thought Cholesterol was the key to good health. Even fat in moderation is perfectly fine.
But Fish will kill you with mercury, uncooked pork will kill you with everything (which is unlikely to happen in the first place, but also most pork you get is already cooked, at least sausage and hams). Salmonella is definitely going to kill you. Your kitchen is going to burn down, Fried food will end your life, and all processed food is bad.
Remember Supersize me? Remember the guy who ate two big macs a day for multiple years. That SINGLE guy should have been the end of the entire documentary, because he basically showed "Yes you can eat McDonalds in moderation and have a healthy life." But instead "McDonalds is going to kill you with super sized food."
The fact is you're probably more likely to get Ebola than most of these things actually contributing to your death.. though speaking of disease myths...
These things rush in, kill a business or a company, and then are forgotten, and then 10 years later new science comes out and goes "Btw it wasn't as bad as people thought... try it out"
About the MSG hysteria, it's not even rooted in actual medical data, just run-of-the-mill xenophobia, which in itself is absolutely wild to me. It's like a whole chunk of the population collectively decided to develop the palate of a toddler, turning up their nose to "foreign" food.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate "Researchers, doctors, and activists have tied the controversy about MSG to xenophobia and racism against Chinese culture,[62][63][64][65][66] saying that East Asian cuisine is being targeted while the widespread use of MSG in other processed food hasn't been stigmatized.[67] These activists have claimed that the perpetuation of the negative image of MSG through the Chinese restaurant syndrome was caused by "xenophobic" or "racist" biases.[68][69]"
I didn't dive deep on MSG just to not sound like I'm ranting about that specifically but you nailed it. It was more about Chinese restaurants (at least that's how I heard it) and I remember my parents saying we don't go to Chinese restaurants during the hysteria.
Sucks because I love Chinese food, and Thai, Korean, Japanese and more.
Not exclusively though. For many the fact that there a scary sounding chemical called MSG in their food is enough. Lots of people are obsessive about 'additives' and assume they are all bad.
Perhaps, but I've seen prejudice against MSG in many Asian American families including those of Chinese descent. Anecdotally, it's more than xenophobia at play for its reputation.
Even the tide pod thing was over blown. No one was actually eating them, it was just a meme.
I mean, unless this article is a fabrication, I think that's enough deaths for concern.
Not suggesting in any way that it was the fault of the mfr, but to me that's plenty to justify folks wanting something done to curb it.
And I curse those folks every single time I have to smash through the lid of my Persil laundry discs with brute strength because the lids are actually people-proof. 🙂
My web browser is calling that article unsafe.
Probably because it contains MSG
Some people literally were tho.
A few, yeah. Most people using the meme were joking about it. The media saw a few memes, wrote some clickbait articles, and boomers who don't understand memes freaked out.
I agree, but the "Tide pods are bad don't eat them" is true... (Though almost all media hysteria is over blown, it's a constant.)
Everything in moderation as long as it isn't straight up poisonous.
And even then, small amounts will make you immune. No seriously, I saw it in a documentary called the Princess Bride.
It depends on what substance it is. I wouldn't try and test this theory on plutonium, but some allergenic stuff can have vaccines made for them.
I've started shooting myself with BBs, I'm working my way up to pellets, then. .22, probably going to stop before 50BMG, but before long, I will be unstoppable!
As a side note, i don't think the skinny guy from Super Size Me who eats 2 Big macs a day is a picture of exemplary health. Dude is either a genetic outlier or he will drop dead of a coronary one day.
All of those could be explanations. Here's another one.
Big macs are 583 calories... two big macs are about 1100 calories... aka perfectly reasonable in a healthy diet. I forget if he ate two a day or two in some meals, but a nutritionist would ok that Calorie count.
Morgan Spurlock pushed "no one can eat here and be healthy" but he constantly pushed for combo meals ate in one sitting, and supersized every time they asked. That's like someone going into a bar and saying yes every time the bartender goes "Want another one" and then going "OMG I'm so wasted and got alcohol poisoning" he set the rules up to make sure he failed, because no one is saying eat a combo meal at Mcdonalds for three meals a day.
The thing is it WOULD be interesting if he looked into why he can maintain a reasonable weight while eating it.... but of course they didn't because that would prove Mcdonalds isn't the worst thing ever. Morgan had two goals. Prove Mcdonalds is unhealthy (And ignore contrary evidence) and make an entertaining documentary. He did the later, but I feel like he never even came close to the former because his methodology was shit.
He's not all that special or unhealthy. 2 big macs is about 1k calories, if you get them as two meals with coke it's about 2k calories. If that's your food for the day it's perfectly fine for a moderately active person. The sodium is probably the most dangerous part and just drinking more water would likely keep that in check as well.
People seem to not understand that not everything is about calories. There’s a fuck ton of grease and fat in that food. You might not exactly gain a ton of weight but you’ll be coating your arteries with all of that fat. A little fat is good. We all need fat. But the amount of fat that is in fried and red meat is very high. Too high to be eating everyday even if you’re within calorie limits
McDonald's isn't actually super fatty or greasey. Fats are overly demonized, they don't make you fat.
It’s ground beef. Of course it’s super fatty.
High fat is bad for you. Eating any thing high in fat will coat your arteries in fat if you’re eating it all of the time as every meal every day. Never once did I say it would make you fat. It will clog your arteries leading to congestive heart failure if it gets bad enough.
I’m not saying eat LOW fat. I’m not saying to cut out fat. But eating a very high fat content diet is terrible for you. Ask any doctor. You’d have to have absolutely zero health sense to think eating burgers every day with fries isn’t terrible for your health.
Clogging arteries is also about cholesterol, which is increasingly determined to be mostly genetic and dietary is secondary.
You can find nutrition studies to support or attack anything, it's one of the worst sectors of science. The US is still recovering from the awful food pyramid paid for by grain farmers. Many cultural cuisines are loaded with fats, olive oil is in everything around the Mediterranean, France uses creams and butters, inuits live on almost exclusively protein and fat.
As long as you get around 25-50 grams in a day you should be fine, it will keep your hormones in check.
Being the same word confuses people and you can tell they have no idea how things work. They think the fat from food literally just passes right into your body parts and fat stores without being processed
Growing up in the 80s when everything went fat free was a nightmare and made everyone, ironically, get fat
I mean, they are the same word because they are the same thing: lipids.
However, the relation of fats to eachother inside a body as storage and outside as calorie intake ARE two different things.
Sodium isn't even dangerous unless you are taking in an absolutely abhorrant excess of it. Everyone should be getting 5 grams a day, and a couple grams more will not cause any harm except for the extreme saltiness when you next sweat.
The constant stupidity around food makes science look really really bad and I bet it's the biggest contributor to people not trusting doctors and climate scientists. Personally I've become something like an antivaxer but with food. If people have been eating it for hundreds of years I trust it regardless of what studies say, and if it's newfangled processed food I don't trust it, also ignoring any study. I can easily see why some people wouldn't differentiate between these alarmist food studies and the much more legitimate areas of science. It's wrong but I understand exactly where they're coming from.
Plus the reporting on it.
At a certain point, people start saying things like "X is supposed to be bad now, but give it 5 years and it'll probably be healthy again!" or "they say you're not supposed to do Y anymore...".
Because, of course, most people get their information from news sources who are always trying to find the next superfood or poison that we've all been consuming for hundreds of years. And often, many of the things were taught when we're younger are no longer considered correct, or at least fully correct, anymore.
So at a point people just get tired, ignore all of it, and just do whatever they were going to do anyway, because from their perspective, scientists can't make their mind up anyway.
I think it’s incumbent upon adults to see media blitzes as probably exaggerated and studded with misinfo.
If you don’t buy the initial wave, the accuracy of news goes way up.
The problem is most people aren't doing that, and even those who do get second hand/rumors/stories from other people and eventually succumb to misinformation.
I've heard many times that X is cancer causings. I wish it was one wave that you could ignore but this shit gets repeated entirely too often, and even if it's not, the misinformations operates outside of the individual, because downstream products (diet coke) moved away from this because of bad PR.
Supersize Me: "Wow, if I eat garbage at a 3000+ calorie rate a day, I'm gonna feel like shit! Please give me awards and adoration and play me in every high school health class!"
Don't forget TV shows, more documentaries and more.
Morgan Spurlock did VERY well for himself based on that completely bias "Study". Sadly that became the style of documentary for a while (and potentially still is). Fuck the facts, let's make entertainment!
Everyone knew McDicks is bad for you. It was an entertaining doc. That's why people loved it. Also, most Americans are 100% ignorant to nutrition. Count your blessings it's a no brainer for you.
Something being carcinogenic is not the same as it being likely to cause cancer. I wish this was a better understood distinction in the public. It comes down to how carcinogenic it is and how much you're exposed to/consume. It is technically true that aspartame is carcinogenic -- it's a scientific fact. But like they say here, normal human consumption amounts makes the likelihood of getting cancer from it negligible.
It's important though to recognize that carcinogens come in varying levels of strength. I'm fine with drinking two cans of diet soda, but I would never wash my hands in benzene. Benzene and aspartame are both carcinogenic, but benzene is WAY more potent. We've limited the amount of benzene that can be in gasoline for this reason -- but again note, it's limited, not eliminated.
I took an environmental engineering class in college, and our professor had a very cute but apt tagline. Dilution is the solution to pollution. You'll never get rid of 100% of something. But reducing its concentration can make it safe regardless. Same idea goes here.
Thanks for coming to my completely unsolicited Ted Talk.
At the same time a lot of people are constantly main lining diet coke
Bois be drinking that shit up
I remember an independent study being done a few years back that basically came to the conclusion that to actually have a chance of getting cancer from aspertame, you'd have to drink like 52 cans of diet coke a day for 50 years.
Up to 14 cans is technically limited but I don't think that limit is relevant for the average person. Or what do the Americans say?
14 cans is like 4.62 liters, which is more than what an average person needs in water per day.
If your drinking 4.5 liters of pop a day, cancer is not on the radar. Plenty of stuff that will kill you first.
I'm in the US. I've never know anyone to drink that much soda, aside from some clients with severe mental illness. One of my clients damaged her kidneys to the brink of failure from drinking such absurd amounts of soda every day.. It's not just the sugar to worry about, but all that carbonation.... It's bad for the kidneys.
I'm not trying to imply that people drinking that much soda are mentally ill, but rather that it is a dysfunctional behavior.
My first thought was my teeth would be brittle as chalk from all that soda
Most my clients had dentures. Self-care and severe mental illness are often in conflict.. While most of my clients were aged between mid 20s to early 50s, most had dentures or failing teeth in need of dentures.
Cancer is one thing, what about other health aspects? Does it affect your gut microbiota like earlier studies have suggested?
I'd think that to be more hereditary, I'm a diet soda enjoyer and my microbiome is very strong, but I also always handled it really well and I do also enjoy eating certain foods like Greek yogurt.
For instance, tolerance to sugar alcohols is a hereditary thing for the most part. A tsp of erithrytol is a serving that would be trivial to some, but send others straight to the toilet.
Anyone with functioning kidneys is fine. Anyone with kidney problems probably isn’t drinking much soda anyway, and if they are that’s their choice. The occasional diet soda won’t kill you any faster than, say, standing outside would.
Nobody’s drinking 5 LITERS of soda in a day. If they are? More power to ‘em.
This isn’t a big deal in the slightest. A lot of diet sodas aren’t even using aspartame anymore, so it’s nearly a moot point.
Won't effect the US, even if it causes cancer. EU has prohibited food additives which are carcinogenic, but we don't because the poor, poor food producers might have to pay farmers more and pay a couple pennies to make food that doesn't kill people.
The US should ban it just like it does saccharine. It takes less aspartame for that study than it takes for saccharine to cause issues I mice.
The US is fairly strict about food additives that cause cancer, but not general chemicals that cause cancer. There's also a difference between causes cancer and link to cancer.
Safe in limited amount, so just like normal sugar then. Just don't drink liters of soda each day. (Or even better, don't drink soda but water instead)
What a surprise, the claims were overblown. Glad to hear I can stock up on my Pepsi Zero again, since 1-2 cans a day won't kill me
Why limit yourself to 1 or 2? The WHO says you can have 14 a day!
They say digesting the contents of aspartame equivalent to 14 cans is safe. Nothing about the actual drinking of 14 cans of coke lololol
I’m still not eating it. It tastes terrible or makes my mouth go numb depending on the type. There is a serious hole in the market to be filled by quick low calorie snack foods that are shelf stable and don’t involve sugar alternatives. Most stuff is just too sweet any way.
14 cans of soda a day, even diet soda, can't possibly be safe or good for you. Especially since aspartame is also linked to kidney and liver failure and is even worse for you than ibuprofen in that regard; and you wouldn't normally take 14 ibuprofen in a single day.
How much did Coca-Cola pay for this PR? I swear, ever since the first news that aspartame is linked to cancer, there have been way more articles trying to convince people it ain't that bad. It's a corporate smokescreen.
Im 90% sure they mean that digesting the Aspartame found in 14 cans per day is safe. Not the drinking 14 cans of coke lol
I've used this for distilling too, when people start talking about methanol. Even with the worst distiller in the world, you'd have to drink something crazy like 10L before it would kill you.
Obviously by that point you'd be dead with alcohol poisoning. But saying "you can safely drink 14 cans of coke a day before the carcinogenic effects of aspartame become an issue" is completely valid, and not the same as saying "drinking 14 cans of coke a day is a healthy way to live".
I've been on a low sugar diet for 3 years, to try to curb my binge eating disorder. Sugar was a huge trigger. I recently looked into how many low and zero sugar products use aspartame and every thing I buy to adhere to my diet has it in it. I'm introducing a bit more regular sugar into my diet so I stop consuming so much aspartame. It's going well. I haven't binged since the start of this, and hopefully it stays that way.
You need a huge amount of aspertame to cause issues. Sugar is very unhealthy and it's in everything. I'd recommend sticking to sugar alternatives. If you're adding sweetener yourself, to coffee or whatever, there are other options though. I like stevia, which you can even grow and extract yourself without too much trouble. Ragardless, unless you're consuming absolutely massive amounts of aspertame, you'll be OK. (Maybe switch to water from soda though. That'll help regardless.)
Thank you for making me feel a bit better. How tf do you grow stevia tho??? I want to do that.
It's just a plant that naturally tastes sweet, but not from sucrose/glucose.
To extract it you put the leaves in alcohol (vodka is fine) and wait 2 days, then cook off most of the alcohol.
Who tf is drinking more than 14 cans of anything in a day. That's way too much liquid. My guts would be sloshing around all day if I did that. I love soda and I drink like 1 every few days. Can't give it up but at least I don't drink crazy amount of it.
Idk, I drink like 3L of liquid a day, especially during the summer. Doesn’t seem that infeasible.
I mean it's almost 5L. Maybe I don't drink enough but seems like a ton. Usually have 1.5-2L of water, 2 espresso and maybe a can of soda/carbonated water.
When you say liquid, do you mean water or something else?
gasoline, cerebrospinal fluid, dawn, you name it
What is dawn? Google isn't getting me anywhere. I want to fully appreciate your concoction.
Dawn is a brand name of Dish Soap
Thanks! Mmm.
A mix between water, cold-press/fresh juices, tea and soda. Whatever I feel like at the time.
oh ok, that sounds reasonable. I was wondering if you were on some kind of special diet that involved 3l of one thing.
I have always heard the 52 can argument but the thing is, who in the hell is drinking 14 cans a day? I'm a physique competitor, I need an exorbitant amount of water and 14 12 fl oz/355 ml cans is a shit ton of fluid.
I'm all for removing toxics from my diet, sure. The thing is, afaik, there is no nutritional function nor benefit to consuming aspartame or for that matter any non-nutritive sweetener. So if it isn't doing anything I need, I'll just skip it. As Michael Pollan said, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."
Nobody drinks diet sodas for the nutrition value. They drink it for the taste.
And there is a benefit in not having sugar. Sugar is far worse. If artificial sweeteners mean you can enjoy the taste of something without sugar, that's healthier. Not nutritious, but healthier. I mean, they're saying up to 14 cans of diet coke a day is fine. But 14 cans of regular coke is 490 freaking grams of sugar and nearly 2000 calories (a pretty typical amount that many folks should have for the entire day). Obesity is a far bigger risk factor for most people.
The anti aspartame thing is just a combination of crackpots, people who have fallen for the "appeal to nature" fallacy, and people who really want everyone to know that they're better than you because they don't drink soda.
You claim to have some clear ideas about why people drink diet sodas. Great. And wish to label me in your own way, not so cool. I was just talking about me, and why this is a non-issue for me. I have a significant educational background in diet and nutrition, and have chosen based on that education to avoid things that are not shown to be helpful, i.e. artificial sweeteners. Personally I happen to like tea, and tisanes, without sweeteners - caloric or non. Turns out tea is the most commonly consumed drink in the world.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/the-worlds-top-drink
It's all good friend. We're all wired a little differently. I'll do me, and you'll do you. Where we meet, is where things get interesting.
It's about making things taste sweet without calories, it's at best indirectly beneficial.
For me it's the fact that when I drink sugar I get energy spikes and mood issues, when I drink sugar free this doesn't happen.
Sugar is basically the purest from of energy you can put in your body, of course it gives you energy spikes.
Yeah, I'm just saying that I'm not choosing sugar free because of calories.
I’d like to change my mind on the topic but I’m not sure how to
In what way do you wish to change your mind, please explain?
Hydro homies where you at? Soda is trash, diet soda is trash, tiktok water is trash. Aspartame aint a problem in our lives.
This. Nothing to worry about if you only drink high quality h2o.
"Water sucks! Gatorade not only tastes better, it quenches your thirst more!"
Hear hear. Water all day every day, with the occasional beer or glass of wine.
Honestly, aspartame is terrible for me. I have a weird allergic reaction to it when all the sudden my sinuses go crazy and I feel like I have a cold. Lasts for 15 minutes or so if I have a sip of aspartame containing beverages. I'll just stick to drinking sparkling water.
I still cut it off my diet. I didn't drink it much to begin with, possible one or two cans a week, but I'm still getting rid of it.
Why is this suddenly a topic of contention now?
Sodium cyclamate is a superior sweetener taste-wise anyway, nothing comes even close. And I’m prepared to die on that hill.
Why don’t brands use it I wonder?
It's still banned in the US, so brands that want to use it would have to have US specific formulas or not desire to sell there.
That's a lot of brands, for sure, but depending on where you are, they might not be the brands you see.
Didn’t know about that. Why is it banned? Isn’t it safer than most alternatives too?
From what I read, in the 60s there was this idea that intestinal flaura would break it down into sulpher compounds that could cause cancer. A bunch of countries banned it, but later research suggested that it's not that big a deal, so a lot of countries unbanned it.
The US was not one of them.
I am in the US and have purchased stevia many times.
Does stevia contain sodium cyclomate?
The problem being, of course, that those that drink things like Diet Coke, are addicted to drinking things like Diet Coke, this hedging after the fact, is such nonsense, and meant to soothe the ruffled feathers of diet beverage manufacturers who advertise with News organizations. If the thing is cancerous, then it's cancerous, now you know, don't keep printing stories saying "a little poison is fine, if you watch it" lol
But a little poison is often fine, and is often qualitatively different in effect than a lot of poison.
Of course a little poison is often fine, if we use such a broad definition of poison.
If the definition of "poison" includes anything that can hurt you in massive quantities, that would include most drugs, plenty of vitamins, essential minerals, and even water if you take it to the extreme.
You don't think 14 cans a day is a massive amount?
14 cans a day is a massive amount, and I didn't say anything to imply otherwise.
I was agreeing with the guy I replied to that "a little poison is often fine" and elaborating that lots of things typically considered "safe" become dangerous in such large quantities.
I think he's saying that exactly
Look up the Linear No-Threshold Model. Same logic applies here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
So actually no. It isn't really safe. Coca-Cola and the rest of the beverage industry is just as bad as big tobacco.
Everything is technically unsafe. When we say "safe" we always mean "in moderation"
I’m going to need someone to define “limited” for me.
Ultimately I think I’d rather take this chance than drink 20 grams of sugar in a can instead!
It's literally in the first sentence of the article. "A widely used artificial sweetener deemed a “possible” cause of cancer is safe in limited quantities, such as consuming fewer than nine to 14 cans of soft drink a day, experts have said."
What is aspartame? The name suggests something inappropriate to be put in a drink, like a drug.
It's an artificial sweetener...
Very glad the WHO doesn't discriminate between countries and companies when it comes to bribes.
Also glad to know there's as safe level of carcinogens I can ingest.
I mean... yeah? That's the case for literally everything. Almost anything will kill you if you consume too much. Surely it's no surprise that the same applies to carcinogenic properties? The sun is an easy one to see the effects of. Some exposure to sunlight won't hurt you (and is in fact vital for vitamin D absorption), but too much and it can cause cancer.