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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

#461

Post by that_guy_iain »

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…

There has been 1,300+ studies in to aspartame. Pretty much all of them trying to prove that aspartame is bad for you. The fact, they've consistently tried and failed to prove a risk after so much testing yet continue to say it may be harmful just leads me to think this is more of a story line being pushed. It is impossible to prove a negative, you can't prove it can't give you cancer. And any attempt to prove it can cause you cancer fails. Not just 100 attempts, not 500, not 1000 attempts over 1,300 attempts have failed.

If someone tried to prove an airplane design can fly 1,300 times and all it did was come off the ground for a centimeter for half a second, would you say "this airplane design can possibly fly"? I doubt any reasonable person would. But with aspartame there is an idea in people's heads that it's harmful and should be avoided therefore people continue to go with the theory that even though they've failed to prove it's harmful 1,300 times they may do so in the future.

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

#462

Post by happymellon »

freshpots wrote: post #434
tomcam wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was low-quality humor. I figured the midi-chlorian reference gave it away, due to the high density of Star Wars fandom on this site. Sorry to trigger you. I added a joke indicator, and I hope your blood pressure will decrease. https://www.starwars.com/news/so-what-the-heck-are-midi-chlo...

It was obvious. Don't waste everyone's time talking way outside your level of expertise and then trying to make jokes when you're called out. It's juvenile.

It was CookieEngineer who made the original comment about something to do with biological cleaning of water.

You may have caught that, but it was Tomcan who made the "joke" comment. I just read it as they responded to your question, but added the terrible humour to imply that they didn't take it seriously.

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

#463

Post by cookiengineer »

freshpots wrote: post #384
cookiengineer wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This [1] and [2] are a pretty good primer on how Kläranlagen are built in Germany where we use a biological water treatment process and are recycling 96% of sewage water.

The remaining ~4% (the Schlacke) usually are used as fertilizers for farming or are burned in biogas energy plants. The latter happens when the quality is not good enough or the sewege plant doesn't have a stage 4 filtration system.

The German wikipedia entry is actually also pretty good [4]

[1] https://umwelt.provinz.bz.it/wasser/wie-funktioniert-eine-kl...

[2] https://av-selbitztal.de/klaeranlage-naila/funktionsweise

[3] https://industryeurope.com/sectors/energy-utilities/how-germ...

[4] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kl%C3%A4ranlage

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

#464

Post by saiya-jin »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #29
adriand wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to read a book. I think you can get away with three steps: 1) This maxim from Michael Pollan: "Eat food [1]. Mostly plants. Not too much." (I personally follow an adjusted version of this: "Eat food. Only plants. Not too much.") 2) Review daily nutrient requirements to ensure your diet is providing you with adequate macro (protein, carbs, fat) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals). 3) A few months af…

And if you eat too many of the wrong plants you get kidney stones etc. etc. Emphasizing variety is very important. It's almost like a second job to keep up with what you _should_ do. Reviewing daily nutrients is way too much effort for most folks.

No its not, thats the perspective of sedentary person who sees somebody running their 5k every day and is eager to give up before even starting.

Once you grok some trivially simple stuff (macro and micronutrients), few extremely trivial requirements (enough good sleep, stay away from sweet stuff in principle which may be hard in beginning but gets much easier over time, eat to stave off hunger and not to feel full, eat less in the evening), you are at least 90% there which is already enough. You really don't need to study constantly labels, you already know whats good and bad and its an effortless background process in the back of the mind.

It really is trivial and very quick to grok. The hard part for many is discipline, thats a mind game everybody has to fight with themselves and find ways how to manage it without frustrating oneself constantly, and thus give up eventually on whole effort.

People often compensate some deep mental issues, ie anxiety with overeating or eating junk food. Obviously this needs to be tackled first if any long term success can be claimed.

Also, for parents, please don't condition your kids on sweet stuff as some sort of reward. If you have to, use some great fruits like forest fruits and not cakes, ice cream etc. You are not being a good parent at all by doing this, just conditioning them mentally that sweet junk is something special, a prize deserved, which creates pretty bad mental patterns for rest of our lives.

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

#465

Post by Broken_Hippo »

valval wrote: post #452
copperx wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why use artificial sweeteners in the first place? Honey is a great sweetener.

Sure, in the right things - but I wouldn't want the taste.

Besides, honey doesn't really do what the artificial sweeteners does. "Just use honey" is horrible advice for diabetics, for example. It isn't going to help folks that are looking to avoid carbs. And so on.

Realistically, if you aren't supposed to be eating added sugar, honey isn't going to do the job either. It is just a different form of sugar.

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

#466

Post by MrsPeaches »

xpe wrote: post #390
colordrops wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probabil...

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

#467

Post by Cthulhu_ »

buu700 wrote: post #438
malablaster wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stevia’s on the WHO list of artificial sweeteners they advise avoiding. https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2023-who-advises-not-to-...

It is, but IIRC for a nonsensical reason. They're lumping it in with a completely unrelated sweetener, erythritol, because some products on the market combine the two sweeteners. Using pure stevia is completely safe, as far as any research I've seen would indicate. Liquid stevia is my go-to sweetener for most purposes, or if I'm baking I'll use a stevia-monk-inulin mix that measures 1:1 for sugar. More recently, I've…

Frozen fruits are usually fresher and cheaper as well, win-win.

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

#468

Post by maksimur »

astrange wrote: post #360
tjohns wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's not a good reason to eat something either - reducing cancer growth typically means something is poisonous.

Any way (or source) for you or anybody else to back up this claim?
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