Reminder that bacon is already a known carcinogen for those worrying about artificial sweeteners but happily eating processed meats.
I hope you're saying to stop eating bacon as well and not just that nothing matters.
Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
251–260 of 584 posts
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#252The challenge you have here is that aspartame isn't just one of most widely studied substances in the food chain, but that it's also one of the most widely and vigorously consumed. People drink a lot of diet soda; a lot of people drink it to the exclusion of all other liquids. So it's going to be tricky to get the epidemiology to match up with the claim here: if aspartame is meaningfully carcinogenic (meaning: more t…
IARC will release it when it's ready, and it'll be here: https://www.iarc.who.int/cards_page/iarc-publications/ (probably here: https://monographs.iarc.who.int/ ) Important to remember that IARC just talks about the quality of the evidence, and not the strength of the effect. If they know that something does cause cancer it'll go into group 1, even if it only causes an additional 1 case of cancer per 100,000 populati…
Per the article, they're planning on Group 2B.
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I don't consume caffeine, but Dave Arnold of the (unimpeachable) Cooking Issues podcast has a whole spiel about how Diet Coke drinkers use it as a primary source of hydration.
Im kinda that way with coffee. Eventually I switch to water but sometimes its the only thing I drink in the day.
In fact I think many people primarily drink something other than water. And im not saying thats good. But between pop, coffee, tea, juice, alcohol and an aversion to tap water, you have a lot of people who rarely drink water.
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#254Donald Rumsfeld was famously influential in getting aspartame's approval ; however more of the story behind this can be found here: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8846759/Nill,_As... In 1984 the year after aspartame's approval for soft drinks, the company that held the exclusive patent on it, sold $600 million worth (1984 dollars) of it. Myself the truly distasteful part is the use of neotame (a follow-o…
> Myself the truly distasteful part is the use of neotame (a follow-on to aspartame) on animal feed, to get animals to eat feed that they normally would not; for instance, if the feed is rancid or otherwise in a condition/taste that normal animal instincts, would have the animal reject the food... True for human food as well. Maybe it’s not rancid, but food science can make terrible ingredients taste great. Take Dori…
Doritos really are an amazing case. They are tortilla chips. It took me so long to realize this because that delicious dust is so transformational. It it’s literally a tortilla chip underneath that salt, msg, and spices. For the longest time I assumed it was some other novel type of chip.
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
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What’s your point? This is a very low effort, meme comment. Seems like a good argument to me. If aspartame is cancerous and people drink a shit ton of it wouldnt we have clear evidence? What could explain it being cancerous and not having a clear link despite its prevalence? At the very least this is an interesting point that doesnt deserve a reddit-like meme comment.
There's a big difference between "this causes cancer" and "this causes lots of cancer". IARC look at the quality of the evidence to put things into one of four groups. Some things definitely do cause cancer, but they don't cause very much cancer.
Don't forget that there are several multi-billion dollar companies who sell aspartame who are vigorously campaigning to promote the safety of their products. It's entirely unsurprising that the data is unclear when you have that level of interference in the research. It's also really tricky to do diet research on humans - we can't lock people up for a year to give them a controlled diet, so we end up asking them to write down what they've eaten and drunk. This means the data researchers have is pretty bad. Looking for a small signal in very noisy data is hard.
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#256Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or HP sauce. Honestly I see it as a feature if we can move product that’s otherwise garbage, as long as it’s not dangerous. Reminds me of “omg do you know what’s in hotdogs?!” Hotdogs are a success story.
Tricking people's bodies into consuming garbage is a feature? For whom?
Harmless garbage, mind you
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Water isn't dangerous but if you were dropped into the middle of the ocean you would probably drown. Does that mean you must swear off water because it's proven to be dangerous since people drown in it?
Not a fair analogy since in one case the water is acting chemically and in the other it is physically obstructing. Potatoes are good for you but if someone
shot one out of a cannon at your face it might not be.
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#259Ok I’ll be that guy. The study says there’s no risk unless you drink equivalent of 70 cokes per day. So I think I’m ok. Barely.
I've been hearing that type of argument since the 70s, after they banned saccharine. Let's suppose a chemical causes slow damage to the body, maybe greatly increasing your risk of cancer or alzheimers if you drink a can of diet soda per day. How could we possibly know if it is safe? We often test chemicals on rats, but the problem is that they only live a few years. No one wants to wait 20+ years to see the results o…
> Let's suppose a chemical causes slow damage to the body, maybe greatly increasing your risk of cancer or alzheimers if you drink a can of diet soda per day. How could we possibly know if it is safe?
The same way we know cigarettes are unsafe. You look at human cohort data and run variable adjustment models on it and control for confounders. How do cigarette smokers or diet soda drinkers do over time, especially in older cohorts? Are there any other products out there with aspartame that we can look at as well until we've isolated a risk model for aspartame by itself?
Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports
#260Reminder that bacon is already a known carcinogen for those worrying about artificial sweeteners but happily eating processed meats.
With bacon you know what you get, so you can dose it and take your risks. Aspartame has been sold to us as the healthy alternative to sugar. People literally use aspartame as an excuse to chug liters of soda every day.
Isn't it a healthy alternative to sugar? If you have a one in five chance to live ten years longer because you don't develop cardiovascular issues from obesity, but one in a million develops cancer, I mean...
It's going to depend on how this turns out exactly.