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Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

technologynetworks.com

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Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#11

Post by shtopointo »

weberer wrote: post #6
ProjectBarks wrote: post #2

How much more risk? Is this a hit piece by big sugar or something? This article is so sparse on details. Exposure to the sun increases the risk of cancer. Emissions let off by cars increases the risk of cancer. I’m just curious… The HR has fairly large bounds... 1.03 to 1.25 so there is increased risk but this still does not tell you if people who consume a lot of sugar substitutes also exhibit behaviors that increas…

They link directly to the study >Compared to non-consumers, higher consumers of total artificial sweeteners (i.e., above the median exposure in consumers) had higher risk of overall cancer (n = 3,358 cases, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.13 [95% CI 1.03 to 1.25], P-trend = 0.002). In particular, 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) were associated…

As far as breast cancer is concerned – they said that there is an overrepresentation of women in the study:

> Debras highlights that 78.5% of the participants included in the analysis were women

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#12

Post by cheald »

colordrops wrote: post #3

The study appears to focus on aspartame, sucrolose, and acesulfame-k, which to my mind (which is admittedly uneducated in this domain) seem heavily artificial, and the findings are not surprising. What about plant-based sweeteners such as stevia, monkfruit etc, or sugar alcohols?

That's what I was looking for, too. With the proliferation of low-carb diets, sweeteners like erythritol, monk fruit, chicory, and allulose have seen significant increases in popularity. I'd really like to see some study that treats them as first-class subjects rather than just retreading the aspartame and acesulfame-k questions.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#13

Post by ProjectBarks »

weberer wrote: post #6
ProjectBarks wrote: post #2

How much more risk? Is this a hit piece by big sugar or something? This article is so sparse on details. Exposure to the sun increases the risk of cancer. Emissions let off by cars increases the risk of cancer. I’m just curious… The HR has fairly large bounds... 1.03 to 1.25 so there is increased risk but this still does not tell you if people who consume a lot of sugar substitutes also exhibit behaviors that increas…

They link directly to the study >Compared to non-consumers, higher consumers of total artificial sweeteners (i.e., above the median exposure in consumers) had higher risk of overall cancer (n = 3,358 cases, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.13 [95% CI 1.03 to 1.25], P-trend = 0.002). In particular, 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) were associated…

Those bounds are fairly wide. Also, my other frustration was an article that has provocative headline, great for sending to your friends, but doesn't do anything but link the study. What are the odds someone is going to read the study? What are the odds they are going to go and learn what HR rate is?

Seems to me all good things for this article to do.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#14

Post by slymon99 »

I can never really take the results of nutritional epidemiology studies too seriously. How can you possibly control for all the confounding variables? People who are avoid artificial sweeteners likely make many other decisions in their diet and lifestyle. It's a healthy user bias. The study controls for some factors like weight and smoking but there's just no way to control for everything, you need randomization - especially when the final hazard ratios are ~1.15.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#16

Post by umvi »

Any reason L-glucose could cause cancer compared to R-glucose? I know it's incredibly hard to isolate and distill L-glucose, but to me that seems like the ideal artificial sweetener because it's chemically the same as natural glucose, just with a different geometry that prevents it from being metabolized.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#18

Post by slymon99 »

shtopointo wrote: post #7

One problem with nutritional studies is that they don't control for all of the other things the patients eat or drink. How can you tell that it was the artificial sweetener that led to cancer? And not one of the other hundred things people consumed during the day?

Not even just consumption, the healthy user bias also effects lifestyle factors. People who try to avoid artificial sweeteners because they think they are unhealthy likely make many other decisions to promote their own health (increased exercise, avoiding other carcinogens). The study attempts to control for some of these factors (exercise, smoking), but given the HR is only 1.15, I have trouble believing the correlation here is anything but spurious.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#19

Post by cheald »

bwestergard wrote: post #4
colordrops wrote: post #3

The study appears to focus on aspartame, sucrolose, and acesulfame-k, which to my mind (which is admittedly uneducated in this domain) seem heavily artificial, and the findings are not surprising. What about plant-based sweeteners such as stevia, monkfruit etc, or sugar alcohols?

What makes the first three "more artificial", in your view?

Well, sucralose is made by replacing hydroxy groups in sucrose with chlorine, and does not exist independent of industrial production processes, while erythritol (for example) is made by fermenting glucose with yeast, and occurs in nature.

Re: Artificial sweeteners are associated with increased cancer risk

#20

Post by bduerst »

ProjectBarks wrote: post #13
weberer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They link directly to the study >Compared to non-consumers, higher consumers of total artificial sweeteners (i.e., above the median exposure in consumers) had higher risk of overall cancer (n = 3,358 cases, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.13 [95% CI 1.03 to 1.25], P-trend = 0.002). In particular, 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) were associated…

Those bounds are fairly wide. Also, my other frustration was an article that has provocative headline, great for sending to your friends, but doesn't do anything but link the study. What are the odds someone is going to read the study? What are the odds they are going to go and learn what HR rate is? Seems to me all good things for this article to do.

What would be a good boundary here, in your opinion?

The 95% CI lower boundary for most of the cancer risks are still > HR 1.00, which seems significant enough to call out an increased risk correlation.

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