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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

#401

Post by creamyhorror »

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…

Might be this paper from Mar 2022, which got me to reduce my aspartame & acesulfame-K consumption when it came out last year: Artificial sweeteners and cancer risk: Results from the NutriNet-Santé population-based cohort study https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

n=102,865 adults were followed for a median 7.8 years, using 24-hour dietary records collected via web including some photographic validation. Key results:

> In particular, higher cancer risks were observed for aspartame (HR = *1.15* [95% CI 1.03 to 1.28], P = 0.002) and acesulfame-K (HR = *1.13* [95% CI 1.01 to 1.26], P = 0.007).

+13~15% raised cancer risk in high consumers of aspartame and acesulfame-K (controlling for many factors, including sugar intake, BMI and weight gain, physical activity, etc.).

> In particular, no difference was detected between the categories ‘higher artificial sweetener consumption and sugar intake below the official recommended limit’ and ‘no artificial sweetener consumption and sugar intake exceeding the recommended limit’

So the raised cancer risk was statistically the same for both categories (though possibly slightly worse for artificial sweeteners). No real win for sugar there (but we also have to look at their performances in the area of CVD and diabetes).

(I will say that the 100g/day cutoff for high vs low sugar consumption is kind of high, even if it includes sugars in fruit and other whole foods. The key question imo is: how would low sugar + low sweetener consumption fare against the equivalent amount of sugar?)

Overall, definitely an interesting study, considering that they adjusted for a lot of factors including BMI/weight gain, and that it's the more health-conscious types who would consume artificial sweeteners. Even the lower-consumption category was associated with a statistically significant +14% raised cancer risk vs non-consumers (for the same level of sugar intake).

One point to note was that sucralose intake didn't seem associated with raised cancer risk, the caveat being that the sucralose sample size was about half those of aspartame and acesulfame-K. This could possibly reflect sucralose being a sweetener used by the most health-conscious participants, since it's less commonly used in mass-market products. Still, would be interesting if sucralose might not contribute to cancer risk. Overall, this paper is a non-loss for sucralose on the cancer front.

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

#402

Post by throw6666667 »

glonq wrote: post #169
samtho wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Aspartame does not exist in a vacuum, however. The sugar industry is arguably bigger, more powerful, and has even more budget to fund motivated research. I don’t trust Big Aspartame to prove to is that it is safe, but I put my full faith in Big Sugar to tell us if something is wrong with Aspartame.

I'm not sure that I even beleive in "Big Aspartame". The patents have expired, so there are dozens of companies who manufacture it globally. I doubt that they all meet at their global secret cabal hideout to align their plans to extinguish all research.

That's not how things work, at all. Most of the things you consider conspiracy theories are done completely in the open and there's nothing conspiratorial nor theoretical about it. These huge companies have hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists, sometimes they work together to push or prevent legislation. They are doing their job, nothing illegal about it, companies are also allowed to do it.

Just to give you a recent/techy example, I'm sure Meta and Google lawyers and lobbyists worked together to deal with the ridiculous Canada news law. Same with Epic and others pushing alternative payments in the App Store.

Not everything is a "secret cabal hideout" jeez

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

#403

Post by Tokkemon »

kagakuninja wrote: post #58
throwaway1777 wrote: post #6

Ok 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…

Chemically, it doesn't make sense that there would be any harm in the first place. With properly functioning kidneys, the resultant chemicals get filtered out extremely quickly through the urine. It helps that most diet colas are also diuretic. The resulting methanol and/or formaldehyde don't stick around to cause harm. This is empirically backed up by the lack of adverse effects over massive populations and over decades.

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

#404

Post by Tokkemon »

jncfhnb wrote: post #213

Do other people feel like aspartame introduces a tangible viscosity into drinks? I feel like it’s like drinking slime

Nope. The amount you need in a drink is so small it wouldn't substantially affect the viscosity at all. Source: me, who mixes soda syrups and did piles of informal experiments on syrup ingredients.

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

#405

Post by kortex »

copperx wrote: post #328
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…

Yes, but hasn't there been also a big increase in certain cancers such as colorectal in young people, and researchers don't have good guesses at what could be causing them? The studies that I read ruled out screenings because it is happening in people decades younger than the first screening recommendations.

Meat consumption is way up and fiber consumption is way down over the past 50 years. Those two factors alone are very big contributors.

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

#407

Post by Tokkemon »

nicole_express wrote: post #108

I hope this questionable categorization doesn't result in aspartame being removed from sodas; I much prefer it to other artificial sweeteners. Can definitely tell when Diet Coke is formulated to include them.

We don't discuss the dark times when Pepsico switched from aspartame to sucralose in the 2010s.

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

#410

Post by Tokkemon »

cheekibreeki2 wrote: post #86

Just returned from Ireland and every 'regular' soda was full of disgusting artificial sweeteners. In the usa these would be labeled diet. And of course sucralose was pretty common and we're now finding scary things about its harm to the human body. Sugar really isn't that bad..

Nah, sugar is way worse.
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