8 ms·

Considering how widespread Aspartame on a societal level, you'd think there'd be epidemiologic evidence of increasing cancer rates over that time. Maybe there

by arn 5y ago

Considering how widespread Aspartame on a societal level, you'd think there'd be epidemiologic evidence of increasing cancer rates over that time. Maybe there is some literature on it, but I hadn't heard.

Gigachad 5y ago
The problem is that we have introduced so many new chemicals recently and have seen so many unexplained changes to health. Its virtually impossible to work out which thing did what. I'm not going to stress over aspartame though. Plastics, PFOA, PTFE, processed meats, and air pollution are way above on my concern scale. If I was concerned about cancer from aspartame, I would never touch any form of alcohol again.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  O? What’s alcohol got to do with aspartame?
  - AuryGlenz 5y ago
    Scientists think that up to 50% of cancer might come from alcohol consumptions, but it’s apparently quite hard to study.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      Ah I remember watching Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia, or maybe just an interview with Hamilton Morris, anyway he usually studies psychedelics and barbiturates and all the weird fringe drugs, and someone asks his opinion on alcohol and he says it’s a really crappy drug because you have to consume massive quantities of it for the desired effect, like most drugs that change your brain up are measured in milli/micrograms, but if you want to get trashed your poisoning yourself with, like, a liter of straight alcohol, it’s a lot of work for your body to deal with compared to smaller dose drugs. Poisoning aside I guess you need to suggest a mechanism where DNA gets interfered with, is our body just as good at error-free mitosis when we’re sleeping off a rough night?
    - noir_lord 5y ago
      I went effectively teetotal around 2007 (I got spectaculary blackout drunk - woke up nearly a day later and couldn't remember getting home or much of the 8hrs prior to that - decided that was a silly way to live and quit). Honestly not something I miss, I raise a glass of whiskey every xmas in remembrance of my grandfathers (Irish one side, Scottish the other). Otherwise never, it's fun when the doc/nurse asks "How any units do you drink?" "About one per year" it's such a massive in-grained part of our culture (I'm British) still. Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998 - partly cost and partly a greater awareness of the damage (plus there is just so much more for the average teenager to do now). The evidence on alcohol and pariculary mouth/oesphagal problems is pretty compelling but I'm not a doctor.
      - cutthegrass2 5y ago
        > Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998 I've noticed this too (also British). I'm very close in age to you and remember the news stories regarding University drinking challenges and deaths in the late 90's. I'm almost teetotal these days too, partly because I have young kids but also because I just don't seem to have the taste for it that I once had. Also, I'm a little concerned about the potential longer term (yet to be discovered) health implications regarding the level of drinking our generation did at the time.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    Its that there are so many thing we _know_ cause cancer in high rates that we still consume. So I wouldn't waste mental energy on something that maybe might cause it before cutting out everything we know causes it first.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  PTFE? It’s so non-reactive that it is commonly used in medical implants, precisely because of its high biocompatibility. I don’t think that there are any connections at all between PTFE and cancer.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    "While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), and decomposes above 350 °C (662 °F).[58] Over 400 °C (752 °F) pyrolysis occurs and more decomposition becomes significantly more rapid. The main decomposition products are tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) and difluorocarbene radicals (RCF2).[58] The degradation by-products can be lethal to birds,[59] and can cause flu-like symptoms[60] in humans—see polymer fume fever." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety
    - ben_w 5y ago
      > However these cases of polymer fume fever were mostly present in people who had cooked at 390 °C (734 °F) for ≥4 hours. My oven goes up to 250 °C, though I never use it above 220. What cooking processes go to each of these thresholds?
      - RL_Quine 5y ago
        Frying.
        ben_w 5y ago
        I thought oil boiled at 300 °C, how do you get up to 390 °C?
        nate_meurer 5y ago
        You don't, at least not on purpose. At 390 C you're filling your kitchen with smoke, and if you're cooking on gas you probably already have a grease fire on your stove. However, it is shockingly easy to get a pan this hot by accident, with no more than a few minutes of inattention. I've seen people burn the non-stick coating off their pans on a couple of occasions after getting distracted by the phone. It's risky to use nonstick cookware the same way you use bare metal pans, by heating the pan up to searing temperature before adding oil and food. I tell people to treat nonstick as though the food is already in the pan before they turn the heat on: don't turn the heat up high enough to burn the food, and the coating will stay safe. It's worth pointing out that there isn't really any good evidence that fumes from burning PTFE cause permanent damage. There have been very few cases of verifiable PTFE "fume fever", in spite of the fact that lots of people burn up their nonstick cookware, and lasting effects haven't been obvious as far as I know.
rgbrenner 5y ago
Aspartame was approved by the fda in 1981... no spike in cancer rates AFAICT: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us?country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the... Doesn't mean it doesn't cause cancer... but even if it does, it must not be a very significant cause.
- wallaBBB 5y ago
  Death rate from cancer is not really comparable, since there has been significant progress in early diagnosis and treatment. Not accusing or defending aspartame, just pointing it out.
- Bud 5y ago
  As this study points out, however, most tumors manifest very late in life. 1981 is only 40 years ago.
dsego 5y ago
There seems to be an increase of people with a range of neurodevelopmental conditions like repetitive patterns of behavior and a perturbed sense of identity.

by arn 5y ago

Gigachad 5y ago

The problem is that we have introduced so many new chemicals recently and have seen so many unexplained changes to health. Its virtually impossible to work out which thing did what. I'm not going to stress over aspartame though. Plastics, PFOA, PTFE, processed meats, and air pollution are way above on my concern scale. If I was concerned about cancer from aspartame, I would never touch any form of alcohol again.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
O? What’s alcohol got to do with aspartame?
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  Scientists think that up to 50% of cancer might come from alcohol consumptions, but it’s apparently quite hard to study.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    Ah I remember watching Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia, or maybe just an interview with Hamilton Morris, anyway he usually studies psychedelics and barbiturates and all the weird fringe drugs, and someone asks his opinion on alcohol and he says it’s a really crappy drug because you have to consume massive quantities of it for the desired effect, like most drugs that change your brain up are measured in milli/micrograms, but if you want to get trashed your poisoning yourself with, like, a liter of straight alcohol, it’s a lot of work for your body to deal with compared to smaller dose drugs. Poisoning aside I guess you need to suggest a mechanism where DNA gets interfered with, is our body just as good at error-free mitosis when we’re sleeping off a rough night?
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    I went effectively teetotal around 2007 (I got spectaculary blackout drunk - woke up nearly a day later and couldn't remember getting home or much of the 8hrs prior to that - decided that was a silly way to live and quit). Honestly not something I miss, I raise a glass of whiskey every xmas in remembrance of my grandfathers (Irish one side, Scottish the other). Otherwise never, it's fun when the doc/nurse asks "How any units do you drink?" "About one per year" it's such a massive in-grained part of our culture (I'm British) still. Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998 - partly cost and partly a greater awareness of the damage (plus there is just so much more for the average teenager to do now). The evidence on alcohol and pariculary mouth/oesphagal problems is pretty compelling but I'm not a doctor.
    - cutthegrass2 5y ago
      > Though the youngsters coming up now drink way less than I did at 18 in 1998 I've noticed this too (also British). I'm very close in age to you and remember the news stories regarding University drinking challenges and deaths in the late 90's. I'm almost teetotal these days too, partly because I have young kids but also because I just don't seem to have the taste for it that I once had. Also, I'm a little concerned about the potential longer term (yet to be discovered) health implications regarding the level of drinking our generation did at the time.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Its that there are so many thing we _know_ cause cancer in high rates that we still consume. So I wouldn't waste mental energy on something that maybe might cause it before cutting out everything we know causes it first.
xyzzyz 5y ago
PTFE? It’s so non-reactive that it is commonly used in medical implants, precisely because of its high biocompatibility. I don’t think that there are any connections at all between PTFE and cancer.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  "While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), and decomposes above 350 °C (662 °F).[58] Over 400 °C (752 °F) pyrolysis occurs and more decomposition becomes significantly more rapid. The main decomposition products are tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) and difluorocarbene radicals (RCF2).[58] The degradation by-products can be lethal to birds,[59] and can cause flu-like symptoms[60] in humans—see polymer fume fever." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety
  - ben_w 5y ago
    > However these cases of polymer fume fever were mostly present in people who had cooked at 390 °C (734 °F) for ≥4 hours. My oven goes up to 250 °C, though I never use it above 220. What cooking processes go to each of these thresholds?
    - RL_Quine 5y ago
      Frying.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        I thought oil boiled at 300 °C, how do you get up to 390 °C?
        nate_meurer 5y ago
        You don't, at least not on purpose. At 390 C you're filling your kitchen with smoke, and if you're cooking on gas you probably already have a grease fire on your stove. However, it is shockingly easy to get a pan this hot by accident, with no more than a few minutes of inattention. I've seen people burn the non-stick coating off their pans on a couple of occasions after getting distracted by the phone. It's risky to use nonstick cookware the same way you use bare metal pans, by heating the pan up to searing temperature before adding oil and food. I tell people to treat nonstick as though the food is already in the pan before they turn the heat on: don't turn the heat up high enough to burn the food, and the coating will stay safe. It's worth pointing out that there isn't really any good evidence that fumes from burning PTFE cause permanent damage. There have been very few cases of verifiable PTFE "fume fever", in spite of the fact that lots of people burn up their nonstick cookware, and lasting effects haven't been obvious as far as I know.

rgbrenner 5y ago

Aspartame was approved by the fda in 1981... no spike in cancer rates AFAICT: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us?country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the... Doesn't mean it doesn't cause cancer... but even if it does, it must not be a very significant cause.

wallaBBB 5y ago
Death rate from cancer is not really comparable, since there has been significant progress in early diagnosis and treatment. Not accusing or defending aspartame, just pointing it out.
Bud 5y ago
As this study points out, however, most tumors manifest very late in life. 1981 is only 40 years ago.

dsego 5y ago

There seems to be an increase of people with a range of neurodevelopmental conditions like repetitive patterns of behavior and a perturbed sense of identity.