Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 584 posts

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#331

Post by nostrademons »

copperx wrote: post #329
nostrademons wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading back in the early 90s a number of studies that showed elevated risks of certain brain cancers from aspartame. The evidence was pretty strong - it wasn't conclusive (hence the "possibly" qualifier in this label), but it was enough that I was personally convinced. The link between aspartame and cancer is much stronger than the one between cyclamate (banned in 1970 but legal in the EU) and cancer. My…

Sucralose (Splenda) has been linked to cancer quite convincingly last week. It's the only artificial sweetener that I used, and now there are no options except sugar alcohols. Monk Fruit has also been linked to cancer.

Would be interesting to see sugar linked to cancer too. Alcohol already has been (with a much stronger link than aspartame).

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#332

Post by copperx »

indymike wrote: post #314
grecy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer rates are rising rapidly. Soon 50% of people will have cancer. I’d say something is going on

From NIH's National Cancer institute: * Approximately 39.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes (based on 2015–2017 data). This is no where near 50% of people "having cancer". * The rate of new cases of cancer (cancer incidence) is 442.4 per 100,000 men and women per year (based on 2013–2017 cases). (.442%) * The cancer death rate (cancer mortality) is 158.3 per 100,000…

Those numbers have been about the same in the last two decades. The numbers have always been that high.

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#333

Post by throwawaylinux »

tptacek wrote: post #233

The 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…

[flagged]

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#334

Post by Nathanba »

indymike wrote: post #314
grecy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer rates are rising rapidly. Soon 50% of people will have cancer. I’d say something is going on

From NIH's National Cancer institute: * Approximately 39.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes (based on 2015–2017 data). This is no where near 50% of people "having cancer". * The rate of new cases of cancer (cancer incidence) is 442.4 per 100,000 men and women per year (based on 2013–2017 cases). (.442%) * The cancer death rate (cancer mortality) is 158.3 per 100,000…

40% is definitely near 50%

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#335

Post by elif »

copperx wrote: post #329
nostrademons wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading back in the early 90s a number of studies that showed elevated risks of certain brain cancers from aspartame. The evidence was pretty strong - it wasn't conclusive (hence the "possibly" qualifier in this label), but it was enough that I was personally convinced. The link between aspartame and cancer is much stronger than the one between cyclamate (banned in 1970 but legal in the EU) and cancer. My…

Sucralose (Splenda) has been linked to cancer quite convincingly last week. It's the only artificial sweetener that I used, and now there are no options except sugar alcohols. Monk Fruit has also been linked to cancer.

My Peruvian climbing guide turned me onto stevia which doesn't fall into any of your categories. It is really a wholesome plant extract instead of something chemists have invented which leads me to have confidence in its (so far as we know) lack of carcinogenicity.

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#336

Post by tjohns »

copperx wrote: post #329
nostrademons wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading back in the early 90s a number of studies that showed elevated risks of certain brain cancers from aspartame. The evidence was pretty strong - it wasn't conclusive (hence the "possibly" qualifier in this label), but it was enough that I was personally convinced. The link between aspartame and cancer is much stronger than the one between cyclamate (banned in 1970 but legal in the EU) and cancer. My…

Sucralose (Splenda) has been linked to cancer quite convincingly last week. It's the only artificial sweetener that I used, and now there are no options except sugar alcohols. Monk Fruit has also been linked to cancer.

> Monk Fruit has also been linked to cancer.

Do you have a citation for that? Google search is telling me the exact opposite, that it seems to reduce cancer growth.

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#337

Post by tptacek »

nostrademons wrote: post #319
tptacek wrote: post #233

The 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…

I remember reading back in the early 90s a number of studies that showed elevated risks of certain brain cancers from aspartame. The evidence was pretty strong - it wasn't conclusive (hence the "possibly" qualifier in this label), but it was enough that I was personally convinced. The link between aspartame and cancer is much stronger than the one between cyclamate (banned in 1970 but legal in the EU) and cancer. My…

The claim you're making here is that there are studies that present strong evidence that aspartame causes brain cancer, but that they've been suppressed this long because otherwise there'd be no artificial sweeteners, a concern we're saying IARC would have had, and that as a result, in 2023, the only way we can move aspartame into Group 2B --- the possible carcinogens nobody takes seriously --- is an observational study in France showing a barely significant increase in cancer rates.

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#338

Post by cmdli »

justinator wrote: post #153
ethanbond wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. This is why analyzing clinical trial data is so obscenely hard. There are bad actors, there are liars, and there are scientists who are really, really hoping to achieve a breakthrough. All of them are liable to end up putting forth bad information.

> It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. Is it easy to turn a blind eye, when factory workers in your own company were dying, or is what we're describing called at best criminal, and at worst psychotic? They were literally just dumping these chemicals down the river. They were fined a small fraction of their profits (of billions) and told pretty please to n…

According to Wikipedia at least (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_sub...), it looks like 3M had a $10b settlement around PFASs, which seems like a pretty big chunk of their $50b company, given how many different products they have. Do you have a source for how much they made off of just PFASs?

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#339

Post by robjan »

grecy wrote: post #291
wkat4242 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I drink a lot of Pepsi Max. I just love it especially in summer. I've drank it for decades. Would this make me worry a lot? Not really. I have worse health risks like being overweight, pfas etc. The "if it was that dangerous we'd see the effect" is a pretty decent argument IMO considering it's been heavily used for almost 40 years.

Cancer rates are rising rapidly. Soon 50% of people will have cancer. I’d say something is going on

We're getting fatter and sitting in a chair all day. It's pretty well known that lack of exercise is a significant cancer risk.

Re: Aspartame sweetener to be declared possible cancer risk by WHO, say reports

#340

Post by Nathanba »

arbitrage wrote: post #11
LarsAlereon wrote: post #8

To clarify, this doesn't mean aspartame in food is harmful, it means that in certain circumstances it's possible for the chemical to cause cancer. For example, workers exposed to extremely high levels during manufacturing, or breakdown products formed during improper storage.

[flagged]

You make a perfectly valid point, if something is used in food production that is only safe in trace quantities then a simple mistake on the assembly line could easily lead to larger quantities ending up in your food and suddenly you have cancer. I prefer having food that doesn't have any in itself cancer causing ingredients.
Post reply on HN