Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Nick1911 on May 22, 2012, 02:21:08 PM
-
I've heard off comments about aspartame since, pretty much forever. "That'll make you glow in the dark!", etc.
This was brought to my attention again today, when my roommate called it "liquid poison" and "heavily correlated with a large number of cancers"
So I started doing some digging. Found some good info on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
It seems to be very clear that aspartame is safe and has been studied long enough and in depth enough to establish that with good certainty.
The National Cancer Institute notes “There is no clear evidence that the artificial sweeteners available commercially in the United States are associated with cancer risk in humans.” (from http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners )
So, am I missing something, or are these anti-artificial-sweetener people totally incorrect?
-
A lot of these things get blown out of proportion by the media, self-righteous politicians, and overprotective soccer mommies.
Aspartame has been thought to cause all kinds of ailments for decades, but no link has ever been produced.
Baked goods are supposed to cause cancer because of tiny amounts of acetonitrile produced by heating flour.
BPA is supposed to cause reproductive harm based on some researchers feeding rats 100,000x the amount found in human blood.
Junk science + hysteria.
-
I don't really care whether it causes cancer or not. It has a nasty aftertaste and I avoid it like the plague.
-
I don't really care whether it causes cancer or not. It has a nasty aftertaste and I avoid it like the plague.
This, exactly.
-
Junk science + hysteria.
Yea, looks like.
I don't really care whether it causes cancer or not. It has a nasty aftertaste and I avoid it like the plague.
Thanks for the helpful insight! :P
-
Thanks for the helpful insight! :P
You can always count on APS!
-
However, I think I can pretty clearly answer your question with another question:
How many lawsuits have there been over cancer caused by aspartame? Given the state of our current legal system, that's a pretty clear indication any "science" backing the correlation is more than a little tenuous.
-
I've seen some actual scientific papers discussing if it's possible aspartame and other non-nutrative sweeteners, like Stevia, and sugar alcohols, like Xylitol, Malitol, or Sucralose may still play a role in diabetes and obesity despite having no calories, or carbohydrates humans can metabolize.
The theory is that just TASTING sweet things sets off many of the same hormonal responses and chemical processes related to obesity and Type II Diabetes even though there's no actual caloric content. Or that it messes with your normal signals of hunger and satiety. Where the tongue says "yep we ate... not hungry" and the stomach says "What gives?" etc. and you wind up actually eating MORE in the long run.
At least some rats did when fed two batches of yogurt, one with glucose, the other saccharine.
However double blind studies in actual humans are tricky. Because it's a combination of metabolic, hormonal, and neurological/psychological factors. And I'm not sure which of these studies, if any, ever actually had test subjects secured to the point they could be fed a controlled and measured diet, given controlled levels of activity, or just relied on weighing, blood work, and self-reporting on questionnaires.
So I think it's possible that artificial sweeteners may actually be contributing to the "Obesity Epidemic" but even if that's so, I agree it's pretty clear they're in no way carcinogenic or toxic, save to a very rare subset of the population with certain metabolic disorders, like Phenylketonuria, and for the most part those folks know who they are.
-
Aspartame? Isn't that the Greek goddess of diet cola?
-
I go between Aspartame in my Dr pepper 10, Stevia in my coffee, and natural sugars in my Mexican sodas (thanks for getting me hooked, fistful's thread). I figure if I keep my body guessing, I'll dodge the cancer bullet. :)
In all seriousness, without any expertise, I simply try to do all things in moderation. I might worry more about any of the three above ingredients if I was drinking ten sodas a day instead of one or two.
-
I avoid it. not because of cancer risks if any, but because it is very inflamatory in some people, can cause headaches and reportedly even seizures in some.
-
I've heard off comments about aspartame since, pretty much forever. "That'll make you glow in the dark!", etc.
This was brought to my attention again today, when my roommate called it "liquid poison" and "heavily correlated with a large number of cancers"
So I started doing some digging. Found some good info on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
It seems to be very clear that aspartame is safe and has been studied long enough and in depth enough to establish that with good certainty.
The National Cancer Institute notes “There is no clear evidence that the artificial sweeteners available commercially in the United States are associated with cancer risk in humans.” (from http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners )
So, am I missing something, or are these anti-artificial-sweetener people totally incorrect?
lately i've been hearing that cancer feeds on sugar. so what's up with that?
http://www.nutritioncancer.com/sugarfeedscancer.html
-
At least some rats did when fed two batches of yogurt...
Ah, rodents and yogurt (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=real-males-eat-yogurt). And humans, too, apparently. =D
-
I get aweful stomach aches from aspartame.
I lost my sweet tooth somewhere around 16-17, so I don't eat much refined sugar either.
-
My name is Larry and I'm a Diet Coke addict.
3-4 liters a day, some days more.
20+ years of that.
I can't drink regular pop, it makes me sick, except most root beer.
Probably not real healthy but I can't ID any health issues from it.
-
Well, not aspartame, but I've proven with myself that Splenda is okay unless cooked. Had some cookies made with Splenda, it was cool. I do not trust the objectivity of the FDA on food additives, nor can I think of another chemical with a chlorine group stuck on it that is good for you.
-
I do not trust the objectivity of the FDA on food additives, nor can I think of another chemical with a chlorine group stuck on it that is good for you.
Salt?
:P
On a similar note- has anyone ever looked at the ingredients in Mt Dew? I noticed a long time ago that one of the ingredients is 'Brominated vegetable oil'- I stopped drinking it.
-
For more of the same, look into MSG
-
Your quote that "The National Cancer Institute notes 'There is no clear evidence that the artificial sweeteners available commercially in the United States are associated with cancer risk in humans'” holds the key, and has long been a bugaboo of mine.
Stating that "there is no clear evidence" usually means that there is no statistically significant difference between groups treated with substance X and groups not exposed to it.
This, however, does not mean there is no difference, it merely means that there is no difference that shows up in statistical tests at some arbitrarily-chosen confidence level.
These confidence levels are usually 5% and 1%.*
In other words, in testing, if we use the confidence level of 5%, what we are saying is that "We are 95% confident that there is no difference between the two groups." And jumping from that, to "there is no difference" is a leap of logical faith. That's the long and the short of it without going into the fundamentals of inferential statistics.
While the statement that "there is no clear difference" is absolutely true, it is a cop-out. The true state of affairs is that there may in fact be a difference, we just didn't see it in our testing.
In testing for "danger," I have long recommended that the confidence levels should be dropped (or raised, depending on how you want to look at it).
Yes, you get more false positives doing it that way, but when you're dealing with potential danger, I would rather see more false positives in testing than more deaths.
Besides, aspartame makes me pee. Bad news when I used to have long meetings coming up.
Terry, 230RN
* These are usually "one-tailed tests."