Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation • Hacker News Board

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#101

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

MyHypatia wrote: post #87

One of the lowest effort healthy lifestyle changes you can make is to wean your body off of craving sweets. Artificial sweeteners still make you crave sweets. Replace sweetened drinks with unsweetened tea (there are hundreds of varieties, you will find something that you like). Replace desserts with your favorite fruit or berries. Your body, mind, and teeth will thank you.

what about carrots ? I find them great fillers, low cal, just enough sweetness inside (only side effect is skin tone if done too much)

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#102

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

jlos wrote: post #99

tofof wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, replace 'sweets' with 'fruits' which are about 50-75% sugar by non-water mass. Eg strawberries - 100 g is 7.7g of carbohydrates (4.9g sugar), 0.7g protein, 0.3g fat. 56% sugar. Or oranges - 165 g without membrane or peel is 20.7g carbs (14g sugar), 1.5g protein, 0.2g fat. 63% sugar. As opposed to, say, a snickers bar. 9.1g carbohydrates (7.6g sugar), 1.1g protein, 3.6g fat. 55% sugar. Or a kitkat. 27.1g carb…

It's not just the sugar, it's the sugar in combination with other ingredients. Even the example you gave the fat is 10x as high and obviously has no fibre. The nutrient density of fruits is magnitudes higher than sweets. And water mass matters as it contributes to satiety vs grams of food consumed.

I believe in that theory too, non processed foods have a lot of stuff beside sugar, fibers will change your gut processing and the metabolic impact can be different. Also you rarely binge on strawberries, you get sick way faster than on kitkats.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#103

Post by BobbyJo » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

tofof wrote: post #100

jlos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the sugar, it's the sugar in combination with other ingredients. Even the example you gave the fat is 10x as high and obviously has no fibre. The nutrient density of fruits is magnitudes higher than sweets. And water mass matters as it contributes to satiety vs grams of food consumed.

OP didn't say anything about reducing fat intake. Aspartame is a sugar substitute, OP talked about switching from sweetened beverage to unsweetened beverage neither of which has any fat. OP also said "your teeth will thank you" which again is an association between sugar and tooth decay, of which fat plays no part. Fat is a nonsequitur here; the linked article is about a sugar substitute. The nutrient density of dess…

Notice how the parent didn't say to wean yourself off 'sugar', but sweets. It he had said sugar, most of the advice about fruits would be contradictory. 'Sweets' generally refers to processed junk food, generally high in sugar and fat. I think following up the conversation by saying fruits are better than sweets because they have water, fiber, and micronutrients, and none of the bad fats most sweets have, is perfectly reasonable.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#104

Post by zwischenzug » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

https://mobile.twitter.com/ianmiell/status/13952925042081259...

I found aspartame triggers my skin condition, probably due to gut bacteria effects. Reading up I found it's got a lot of side effects which sound bad. Also, my gums are better since giving up coke zero.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#105

Post by vladvasiliu » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

tofof wrote: post #98

MyHypatia wrote: post #87

One of the lowest effort healthy lifestyle changes you can make is to wean your body off of craving sweets. Artificial sweeteners still make you crave sweets. Replace sweetened drinks with unsweetened tea (there are hundreds of varieties, you will find something that you like). Replace desserts with your favorite fruit or berries. Your body, mind, and teeth will thank you.

Ah, yes, replace 'sweets' with 'fruits' which are about 50-75% sugar by non-water mass. Eg strawberries - 100 g is 7.7g of carbohydrates (4.9g sugar), 0.7g protein, 0.3g fat. 56% sugar. Or oranges - 165 g without membrane or peel is 20.7g carbs (14g sugar), 1.5g protein, 0.2g fat. 63% sugar. As opposed to, say, a snickers bar. 9.1g carbohydrates (7.6g sugar), 1.1g protein, 3.6g fat. 55% sugar. Or a kitkat. 27.1g carb…

I think the issue isn't just the pure carb content. 100g of strawberries is a lot of strawberries. 100 g of Snickers bars is... two bars. I can easily eat two and then crave another one right away. After 100 g of strawberries, I'm pretty much done for a while. Same with say, apples.

I think one thing that is usually overlooked in these discussions is the "feeling" part of it, for lack of a better term. Some things make you want to keep on eating, while others are satiating. Of course, if you're able to only eat one Snickers bar a day while the cupboard is full of them, then that's great! I know I can't, so I avoid them altogether.

Carb content (calories, actually) isn't important per se, what matters is the total consumed quantity, and usually calorie-dense foods have a tendency to incite overconsumption.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#106

Post by Bud » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #41

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.

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.

As this study points out, however, most tumors manifest very late in life. 1981 is only 40 years ago.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#107

Post by zosima » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

From the abstract this study does not bear any resemblance to the headline and makes very little sense to me.

They reevaluated tumors from a 15 year old study in rodents, to prove that the original work was correct and that there wasn't any traces of mycoplasma. And so, I presume, they argue that the cancers were caused by aspartame.

But that in itself does not prove whether or not the original study was flawed, and well there is mountains of evidence showing very little carcinogenicity from aspartame.

If you were to argue for the carcinogenicity of aspartame, then I suggest running a new study as a first step at least. And then explain why you see something most other studies have failed to see.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#108

Post by Bud » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

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?

Even without the fundamental error of calling aspartame an amino acid, this argument is also similar to saying that chlorine and sodium can't be toxic since they are "in" sodium chloride, and salt is perfectly safe.

Betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of chemistry.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#109

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

tofof wrote: post #98

MyHypatia wrote: post #87

One of the lowest effort healthy lifestyle changes you can make is to wean your body off of craving sweets. Artificial sweeteners still make you crave sweets. Replace sweetened drinks with unsweetened tea (there are hundreds of varieties, you will find something that you like). Replace desserts with your favorite fruit or berries. Your body, mind, and teeth will thank you.

Ah, yes, replace 'sweets' with 'fruits' which are about 50-75% sugar by non-water mass. Eg strawberries - 100 g is 7.7g of carbohydrates (4.9g sugar), 0.7g protein, 0.3g fat. 56% sugar. Or oranges - 165 g without membrane or peel is 20.7g carbs (14g sugar), 1.5g protein, 0.2g fat. 63% sugar. As opposed to, say, a snickers bar. 9.1g carbohydrates (7.6g sugar), 1.1g protein, 3.6g fat. 55% sugar. Or a kitkat. 27.1g carb…

Everyone says this but it misses the point. Fruit in it's natural state is a complete package of nutrients, fiber, and unrefined sugar. It has less of an impact on blood sugar than processed food with the same amount of sugar.

Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation

#110

Post by zippy5 » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

kortex wrote: post #86

zippy5 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work on DNA dyes. Typically when you see a 6 carbon ring with a chain of carbons attached, there is high probability of that molecule interfering with DNA replication. Basically the mechanism works because the hexagon ring slides between the base pairs and this leads to a lowest energy state due to a phenomenon call pi orbital stacking resulting in the molecule getting stuck there. The carbon chain is mostl…

If that hypothesis were true, it would implicate not just phenylalanine, but dopamine, epinephrine, diphenhydramine, ibuprofen, paracetamol, limonene, vanillin, cinnamaldehyde, and literally thousands of other different molecules, natural and synthetic, we constantly interact with. Heck, most polyphenols have pi-conjugation, and those are widely thought to have antioxidant and anticancer effects. Oh and I completely…

It’s not really a comprehensive interpretation of intercalation but I think a geometric interpretation can help some non-chemists understand how intercalating molecules bind to dna.

From the purely geometric model, some of the molecules you proposed have pretty large functional groups adjacent to rings which I think may make the intercalation process less efficient. That being said, if you took those molecules and gave massive doses to rats, some may comeback as carcinogenic.

I think that your multi-ring point is fair. The multi ring structure to me suggests that the more the pi orbitals are able to delocalize their electrons the higher the binding efficiency. I have tested 1-2 molecules where non-fused rings showed some affinity but not near the potency of fused ring structures. I would also say two rings with a carbon-carbon link seem to be potent binding as well. I presume that it’s also related to delocalizing pi orbitals and extra degrees of freedom in the intercalation process but I suppose that’s just speculative.