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

theguardian.com

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

#381

Post by colordrops »

kortex wrote: post #373
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…

The other big challenge is from a SAR (structure-activity relationship) point of view, it's completely benign looking from just about any way you look at it. It's two peptides, and a methanol (which yes, gets converted to formaldehyde, but so does fruit pectin). There's nothing zany about its structure, it's not particularly lipophilic, no receptor bindings of note, no spicy reactive groups, no alkylators, no interca…

You can get cancer from not getting enough sleep. There are plenty of innocuous substances that look fine chemically but disrupt sleep. It doesn't have to be directly mutagenic to cause cancer.

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

#382

Post by hedora »

Spivak wrote: post #359
wahnfrieden wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

theyre just saying the stakes are high because there is both broad and regularly high consumption

Yes but a can of coke is ~200mg of aspertame. You would have to drink conservatively 30 cans a day to even get close to known dangerous levels.

If you’re worried about cancer, then maybe it takes that much.

If you’re worried about it causing weight gain and/or metabolic syndrome, one serving a day is more than enough to be dangerous.

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

#383

Post by copperx »

loeg wrote: post #244
malnourish wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued. That seems a fair bit different than the uncured bacon I'm familiar with in the US [0], but I would certainly give it a try. [0]: https://applegate.com/products/natural-thick-cut-bacon

(Note that this product is actually cured with nitrates via the celery powder in the ingredients list.)

Ah, the magic of marketing.

It's exactly the same, except one uses celery. No, in fact, if I remember correctly, the nitrates used in the "uncured" process were even higher than the normal process.

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

#384

Post by freshpots »

cookiengineer wrote: post #354
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.

I don't think it's a decent argument. You are using the "I was at the train station and I was never mugged there, therefore mugging never happens at train stations" extrapolated argument. People still think that smoking doesn't cause cancer, even when they are in the hospital because of not being able to breathe. People still deny that climate change exists because of that one bought study in the 60s. People still dr…

"People still drink chlorified water and governments still are too lazy to use a biological cleaning process all over the world..."

What biological cleaning process are you referring to? How does it prevent bacterial growth in the water distribution system?

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

#385

Post by xpe »

jorvi wrote: post #321
rnk wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra and highly processed foods are terrible for us. Consuming so much more sugar than in nature seems to be bad for glucose intolerance. I love bacon but I try to resist ever having any. Don't buy meats with nitrates. We do have way more cancers, a big reason we know about is our food choices. We don't even know the impact of hard things to measure yet, like the impact of all these things on our gut biology. It's n…

> I love bacon but I try to resist ever having any. Don't buy meats with nitrates. That is no way to live. In general, you should think about risk management, not exclusion. Have your bacon as a bi-monthly treat, and splurge for some high quality bacon at the butcher. I remember seeing a video of a talk where the host asked who was managing their health by going partially or fully vegetarian. Lots of raised hands. Th…

In the name of sanity, let’s all avoid “biweekly” and “bimonthly”. Just say twice a X to be clear. Pretty funny how the dictionary claims to be largely neutral by only reflecting the cultural ambiguity. I want an f-ing opinionated dictionary that says: avoid this ambiguous word!

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

#386

Post by copperx »

LegitShady wrote: post #188
malnourish wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to what remote_phone said, and repeating another comment of mine, that nitrite free bacon still has the same amount of nitrites (in some cases, more). https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos...

There’s one place near me that sells actual nitrate/nitrite free bacon but its super expensive - $10-12 Canadian for 250grams or so. It like double bacon in the store and its an hour drive away. Sad to learn about the celery nitrite thing. I’ve been overpaying for it for a while now, apparently. It literally says “contains no preservatives” but has “cultured celery extract” in the ingredients, so its a lie.

Yup. You were overpaying for a worse product. Unfortunately, that seems to be the norm in processed products branded as healthy.

It's better to stick the the regular version; the kinks have been probably worked out. Still unsafe, but unsafe in a known quantity.

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

#387

Post by hedora »

abtinf wrote: post #307
favorited wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO recently conditionally recommended against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control. Their stance is that we should be reducing sweetened food/beverage intake in general, rather than trying to find healthier ways to sweeten what we eat. https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2023-who-advises-not-to-...

If we shift the context just a little bit, everyone would ridicule this kind of abstinence-only approach.

Aspartame causes weight gain, so abstinence-only isn’t a great analogy.

If you are trying to lose weight, then just use less sugar. That’s actually pretty easy, since artificial sweeteners and sugary drinks desensitize you to sweet stuff.

If you taper off for a week or so, you’ll find that the stuff you were previously drinking is cloyingly sweet.

For instance, reading a starbucks menu makes me shudder. I can’t even drink their non-dairy lattes anymore because they are too sweet.

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

#388

Post by xpe »

headwayoldest wrote: post #380
kortex wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big challenge is from a SAR (structure-activity relationship) point of view, it's completely benign looking from just about any way you look at it. It's two peptides, and a methanol (which yes, gets converted to formaldehyde, but so does fruit pectin). There's nothing zany about its structure, it's not particularly lipophilic, no receptor bindings of note, no spicy reactive groups, no alkylators, no interca…

So you're telling me there's a chance? Warnings like these quickly hit the Prop 65 problem - the notices are so ubiquitous you go blind to them.

These notices are ineffective to say the least. Saying “everything causes cancer” is pointless because it ignores the key questions of “how often?” and “with what severity?”

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

#390

Post by xpe »

colordrops wrote: post #381
kortex wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big challenge is from a SAR (structure-activity relationship) point of view, it's completely benign looking from just about any way you look at it. It's two peptides, and a methanol (which yes, gets converted to formaldehyde, but so does fruit pectin). There's nothing zany about its structure, it's not particularly lipophilic, no receptor bindings of note, no spicy reactive groups, no alkylators, no interca…

You can get cancer from not getting enough sleep. There are plenty of innocuous substances that look fine chemically but disrupt sleep. It doesn't have to be directly mutagenic to cause cancer.

Common writing, even from well-regarded sources, is often unnecessarily vague wrt statistics.

Claim: we would benefit by building a culture where basic probability ranges are expected and used.

Idea: Serious publications could:

A. Set basic guidelines for talking about probability estimates; something akin to what you see in government or business intelligence publications. For example, maps terms to ranges:

“highly likely”: > 90%

“likely”: 70% - 90%

“somewhat likely”: 50% - 70%

…

B. Update their editorial standards to not allow pure vagary around probabilities and impacts.

Could authors write more quantitatively? At the levels of the top 100 publications, I’d guess that 80% could, with the help of research and editing staff.

Would some readers be scared off? I’d guess than 80% of a college educated audience could handle it. The rest might complain, but could level up with a little peer pressure.

Would articles become more rigorous? Over time, I’d hope most would. Shift the expectations and make the vocabulary less forgiving to vaguery and fudgery, and I think the incentives point in the right direction.

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