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Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

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Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#61

Post by lonelyasacloud »

flyinghamster wrote: post #19
morkalork wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like a low sugar soft drink, not artificial but one with like 1/4 the amount of real sugar. It would probably taste fine, I don't get why everything needs 32g in it!

Sports drinks. Maybe not 1/4, but 1/3-1/2 is certainly doable. The one in front of me is 150 calories per 28 oz, versus similar levels per 12-oz. serving for typical soft drinks.

At least in the UK many of the leading "sports" drinks, will add some form of artificial sweetener regardless of if it is a high sugar or low sugar variant e.g.

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/lucozade-sport-o... - Sugar + Aspartame + Acesulfame K

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/powerade-berry-t... Sugar + Aspartame + Acesulfame K

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/lucozade-sport-z... Acesulfame K + Sucralose

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#62

Post by MrMcCall »

Doesn't aspartame partly break down into methyl alcohol if it gets too hot?

I regularly drank Diet Cokes 25 years ago, and remember some batches would be "worse" than others.

And, whether from cans or plasic bottles, you're either also getting the can's lining or the plastic from the container mixed into the soda, right? I mean, it's an acidic liquid, so there is bound to be some dissolution of the lining into the fluid, by my understanding, with the more the warmer the temp.

And I do wonder what temp the bottling takes place at.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#63

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

mort96 wrote: post #24
kvgr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of carbonated water gives me gas, especially when not eating enough. But I am not sure it is an issue. People have various gas levels, it just goes in and out.

And this gas escapes through your urethra?

Kazoo orchestra, anyone?

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#64

Post by MrMcCall »

procaryote wrote: post #39
morkalork wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like a low sugar soft drink, not artificial but one with like 1/4 the amount of real sugar. It would probably taste fine, I don't get why everything needs 32g in it!

making your own lemonade is awesome! You can tune the amount of sugar and lemon you want, from "water with a drop of lemon" to whatever you like. Put some fresh mint in there if you like If life didn't give you lemons, you're out of luck though

To take to an even higher level, grate some of the lemon peel and then squeeze its "lemon zest" into it.

I promise you it is excellent, but I only suggest organic lemons for this process!

We also only use raw whole sugar or turbinado.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#65

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

MrMcCall wrote: post #59
cynicalpeace wrote: post #29

The lesson again and again is to simply eat whole foods. ...cue the onslaught of wise-guy comments claiming sliced carrots aren't whole foods.

Hundreds of housands of years of the human body's evolution should be respected, neh? I like my day's first glass of water to have a half a lemon's worth of juice freshly squeezed into it. My cold-brew (or occasionally espresso) coffee gets real maple syrup (no Log Cabin bullshit sugar-fest) and half-and-half or maybe whole milk. Sometimes I mix yogurt into a mug of milk towards the end of the day. That's the fullnes…

I find this line of reasoning disingenuous. After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago. Does your evolutionary heritage put you in places where hundreds of thousand of years ago you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup? Is half-and-half natural? Is coffee? Is maple syrup? On a scale of hundreds of thousands of years all those are relatively recent.

It's a bit of straw-man, but I'm try to point out that we can't appeal to being in alignment with our evolution when even those barebone items have been refined and we wouldn't have eaten them in our prehistory.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#66

Post by MrMcCall »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #65
MrMcCall wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of housands of years of the human body's evolution should be respected, neh? I like my day's first glass of water to have a half a lemon's worth of juice freshly squeezed into it. My cold-brew (or occasionally espresso) coffee gets real maple syrup (no Log Cabin bullshit sugar-fest) and half-and-half or maybe whole milk. Sometimes I mix yogurt into a mug of milk towards the end of the day. That's the fullnes…

I find this line of reasoning disingenuous. After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago. Does your evolutionary heritage put you in places where hundreds of thousand of years ago you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup? Is half-and-half natural? Is coffee? Is maple syrup? On a scale of hundreds of thousands of years all those are relatively recent. It's a bit of straw-man, b…

> After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago.

But for the past thousands of years, I'm pretty sure my lineage could.

> you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup?

Citris? Beans? Tree syrup?

> Is half-and-half natural?

Sure is. And so is yogurt (a Turkish word, I'll have you).

> It's a bit of straw-man

I'd call it something else, completely.

> I find this line of reasoning disingenuous.

Duly noted.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#67

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

MrMcCall wrote: post #66
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this line of reasoning disingenuous. After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago. Does your evolutionary heritage put you in places where hundreds of thousand of years ago you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup? Is half-and-half natural? Is coffee? Is maple syrup? On a scale of hundreds of thousands of years all those are relatively recent. It's a bit of straw-man, b…

> After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago. But for the past thousands of years, I'm pretty sure my lineage could. > you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup? Citris? Beans? Tree syrup? > Is half-and-half natural? Sure is. And so is yogurt (a Turkish word, I'll have you). > It's a bit of straw-man I'd call it something else, completely. > I find this line of reasoning disi…

Few thousand years, OK, but not hundreds of thousands. Coffee has only been drank for less than a thousand years. They aren't just beans, they are specific beans that undergo refinement to get them to where we want them to be. Same with maple syrup - tree sap is not the same in its natural form. You're drinking a concentrated sugar.

The lines in the sand here aren't as definite as they are made out to be.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#68

Post by mort96 »

nnutter wrote: post #56
mort96 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While certainly an option, just watering out a drink more isn't really what they're asking for. There's lots of other flavor compounds that you don't necessarily want watered out just because you want less sugar.

Diluted juice is still a useful suggestion as an alternative idea. I don’t get why people would down vote; that’s not what down vote is for. I like diluted juice quite a bit, 25-50% tastes fine, it’s akin to tea to me. It would be interesting if more beverage companies made a “add your own sweetener” version which is how unsweetened Kool-Aid drink mixes come. They have maltodextrin in them but say they are 0 calorie…

Oh I definitely agree it's a good practical suggestion, I do it with apple juice sometimes because I just want some mild apple flavor rather than the very strong and sweet apple juice taste. I don't get why someone would downvote it either.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#69

Post by kreetx »

anon373839 wrote: post #27
kreetx wrote: post #8

Every now and then there is an alarmist article about aspartame, and every time it's hard to tell whether moderate drinking of soft drinks is better when it had regular sugar vs when it has aspartame - can any person more familiar comment on this with regarding to current article?

The funny thing about this question is that it doesn’t really matter, unless it does: Sugar harms your health in a whole host of well documented ways, but a little of it, infrequently, is fine. Aspartame has always been under a cloud of doubt, but is probably also just fine in small amounts. So really, you only need to be thinking about this if you’re having either of them as a regular part of your diet. And if that’…

My main question is, if I drink ~3 glasses of soft drinks per day, should I get the one with sugar or the one with aspartame. Currently, I get the one with aspartame with thinking that (1) given the amount of sugar in this amount, I'd be running 100% full of my daily sugar norm, and (2) there are no conclusive evidence of aspartame being actually bad. Would the sugary drink be a better choice?

Another thing that irks me (though less so), is that occasionally somebody says for an aspartame drink that "you're drinking that poison?", when clearly, we would know if it really were poison.

Re: Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

#70

Post by eemil »

What's with the double standard, around sugar and artificial sweeteners?

Artificial sweeteners do not need to be as safe as bottled water.

They just need to be less harmful than sugar. Which they are, because sugar is unequivocally, very very bad for you.

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