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Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#41

Post by rgbrenner »

arn wrote: post #23
kiba wrote: post #4

Note that it is in rodent. Aspartame hadn't been confirmed as a carcinogenic agent in humans. That said, I don't think it's a good idea to subject to ourselves to drinking diet soda as a daily habit. It costs money, may or may not interfere with your blood sugar and the health of your gut microbiomes. As a goal, I limit my intake of any sweet and/or artifically sweetened drinks. Instead of being a chronic diet coke d…

Considering how widespread Aspartame on a societal level, you'd think there'd be epidemiologic evidence of increasing cancer rates over that time. Maybe there is some literature on it, but I hadn't heard.

Aspartame was approved by the fda in 1981... no spike in cancer rates AFAICT:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the...

Doesn't mean it doesn't cause cancer... but even if it does, it must not be a very significant cause.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#42

Post by cwwc »

lysozyme wrote: post #16

The strain of rat used in these experiments, the Sprague Dawley, is commonly used to study cancer because it has a higher baseline incidence of cancer and grows solid tumors faster than other strains [1]. Interestingly, it’s the same strain that was used in the now-discredited study purportedly showing that RoundUp causes cancer [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat#Sprague_Dawley_... 2. https://en.wik…

#monsanto

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#43

Post by dragonwriter »

Gatsky wrote: post #40

Aspartame is an amino acid right? Isn’t it going to be in all sorts of proteins then? Doesn’t that make it rather implausible that it is toxic?

> Aspartame is an amino acid right?

No, that's not right. It's a peptide (a unit composed of amino acids), not an amino acid.

> Isn’t it going to be in all sorts of proteins then?

Proteins are made of peptides but not all peptides are common in proteins, no.

> Doesn’t that make it rather implausible that it is toxic?

No, lots of proteins are toxic to particular organisms, too.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#44

Post by losethos7 »

frickinLasers wrote: post #37
goda90 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen lots of concern about preservatives, colors, and flavorings in foods as well, but sweeteners have a more pronounced role as replacements for sugar. This makes them far more visible in general.

Aspartame also rapidly "breaks down into residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol, and further breakdown products including formaldehyde and formic acid" on ingestion. [1] Even with no smoking gun for cancer, why would anyone tempt fate after reading that? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Metabolites

Just love how you selectively quote that paragraph. The following sentence is: In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages.

In other words, all of those compounds are fairly simple small molecules and will be found abundantly in nature. There is no indication that aspartame leads to the breakdown of larger quantities then many "natural" foods.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#46

Post by akiselev »

frickinLasers wrote: post #37
goda90 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen lots of concern about preservatives, colors, and flavorings in foods as well, but sweeteners have a more pronounced role as replacements for sugar. This makes them far more visible in general.

Aspartame also rapidly "breaks down into residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol, and further breakdown products including formaldehyde and formic acid" on ingestion. [1] Even with no smoking gun for cancer, why would anyone tempt fate after reading that? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Metabolites

That’s some weapons grade FUD you got there.

First the dose makes the poison and second, all of those compounds are naturally occurring in humans as part of our metabolism. The pathways responsible for metabolizing proteins and keeping us alive produce them.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#47

Post by jazzyjackson »

losethos7 wrote: post #44
frickinLasers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aspartame also rapidly "breaks down into residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol, and further breakdown products including formaldehyde and formic acid" on ingestion. [1] Even with no smoking gun for cancer, why would anyone tempt fate after reading that? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Metabolites

Just love how you selectively quote that paragraph. The following sentence is: In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages. In other words, all of those compounds are fairly simple small molecules and will be found abundantly in nature. There is no indication that aspartame leads to the breakdown of larger quantities then many "natural" foo…

Damn bro your first comment got insta-killed, I wonder whose mad

Anyway, not everybody gets o-chem in their lives, but we all have an opinion on the news.

All I want to know is what does it say about my biology that aspartame tastes like shit to me.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#49

Post by pmoriarty »

caturopath wrote: post #32
hellbannedguy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought they tasted terrible.

It's a big category. Aspartame has a really distinctive taste, but lots of sweeteners like sucralose and allulose not so much.

I can recommend tagatose.[1]

It tastes and feels indistinguishable from ordinary table sugar to me.

[1] - https://www.wired.com/2003/11/newsugar/

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagatose

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#50

Post by XorNot »

tptacek wrote: post #45

Aspartame isn't just widely consumed, it's practically universally consumed. If it was carcinogenic in humans, wouldn't there be obvious epidemiological evidence to back that up?

It's not unreasonable to assume that the current rate of disease in our populations might be able to be lower since we weren't tracking the association of the introduction of products to safety in years past as well as we do today.

A better question is, suppose it was known that it did create a small but measurable in lifetime cancer risk, would you actually want to keep consuming it?

EDIT: Also aspartame is hardly universal - it's biggest use is in diet soda. Those of us who essentially never consume it (it's been...over 2 years for me) would almost never be exposed to it.

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