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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

#51

Post by mioasndo »

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

You forgot the second half of the paragraph from your source:

> Human studies show that formic acid is excreted faster than it is formed after ingestion of aspartame. In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages.

Also:

> Aspartame consists of two amino acids—aspartic acid and phenylalanine. When ingested, aspartame is broken down into these amino acids for use in protein synthesis and metabolism. In addition to aspartic acid and phenylalanine, aspartame digestion also yields a small amount of methanol, a compound that is naturally found in foods like fruits and vegetables and their juices. The amount of methanol resulting from consuming an aspartame-sweetened beverage is about five to six times less than that resulting from the same volume of tomato juice.[1]

[1] https://foodinsight.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-as...

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#52

Post by sm4rk0 »

TL;DR:

> This immunohistochemical and morphological re-evaluation confirmed the original diagnoses of malignancy in 92.3% of cases. Six lesions originally diagnosed as lymphoma (8% of all HLTs) were reclassified: 3 to lymphoid hyperplasia, and 3 to chronic inflammation with fibrosis. There was no evidence of Mycoplasma infection.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#53

Post by jazzyjackson »

Gigachad wrote: post #29
arn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that we have introduced so many new chemicals recently and have seen so many unexplained changes to health. Its virtually impossible to work out which thing did what. I'm not going to stress over aspartame though. Plastics, PFOA, PTFE, processed meats, and air pollution are way above on my concern scale. If I was concerned about cancer from aspartame, I would never touch any form of alcohol again.

O? What’s alcohol got to do with aspartame?

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#54

Post by tptacek »

XorNot wrote: post #50
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 u…

I don't know, like everybody else, I eat things with substantial amounts of acrylamide, which is a carcinogen we actually know is problematic, unlike aspartame.

You're commenting on a story that suggests that even small exposures to aspartame might be dangerous. And you stopped drinking diet soda only recently. I think you might have a hard time finding an American (for instance) that hadn't consumed a substantial amount of aspartame.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#55

Post by colordrops »

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?

We barely understand the causes of most cancers; how would we separate out that aspartame is the cause of a bump in rates among so many other carcinogenic influences in our lives?

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#56

Post by benjaminwootton »

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?

There is a lot of cancer in the western world. Without looking it up, I assume many cancers are even correlated with Aspartame consumption, for instance the US will have a lot of both.

Maybe there’s the evidence.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#57

Post by tptacek »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #56
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?

There is a lot of cancer in the western world. Without looking it up, I assume many cancers are even correlated with Aspartame consumption, for instance the US will have a lot of both. Maybe there’s the evidence.

No, the correlation evidence apparently goes the other way with aspartame.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#58

Post by jazzyjackson »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #27
brador wrote: post #2

Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?

These are not common food ingredient, and they are not supposed to be injested. I was doing the dishes the other day, and like usually, doing a terrible job--trying to save water too. I was thinking what damage could soap residue do? I then noticed the Dawn Soap. From and center they listed all the ingredients. (So front and center it looks like a lawyer told them to place the ingredients front, and center?) Do I sti…

Soap is hydrophilic, it sticks to water, that’s what makes it good at washing things away. I never had trouble with soap residue, I figure I would taste it if any was left behind.

Edit: I do buy the colorless and scent free soap cause I don’t see why dyes should be in soap tho

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#59

Post by kortex »

Occam's razor:

1) humans consume ~5000 tonnes of the stuff, which apparently causes multiple kinds of cancers in rodents, and it's also super bad for humans, but despite its ubiquity we haven't seen that signal because...?

2) rodents with a lifespan of 1-3 years get cancer super-duper easily

Rodent models are easy. Easy != simple.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#60

Post by Auracle »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #17
caturopath wrote: post #3

I think that there's some weird sort of moralization aspect to alternative sweeteners or just a 'too good to be true' attitude. In how many other areas would we spend so much time looking at such scant evidence and taking it seriously?

I've always thought they tasted terrible.

I agree, but maybe that’s because it gives me a headache.

At least, I think it does. I can never remember which sweeteners do - some do, some don’t. I don’t eat them enough to keep track.

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