3 ms·
From the abstract this study does not bear any resemblance to the headline and makes very little sense to me. They reevaluated tumors from a 15 year old study
by zosima 5y ago
From the abstract this study does not bear any resemblance to the headline and makes very little sense to me.
They reevaluated tumors from a 15 year old study in rodents, to prove that the original work was correct and that there wasn't any traces of mycoplasma. And so, I presume, they argue that the cancers were caused by aspartame.
But that in itself does not prove whether or not the original study was flawed, and well there is mountains of evidence showing very little carcinogenicity from aspartame.
If you were to argue for the carcinogenicity of aspartame, then I suggest running a new study as a first step at least. And then explain why you see something most other studies have failed to see.
- gscott 5y agoMice tend to be so inbred they all die of cancer. They should redo the study on a different animal that has less incidence of cancer normally... like Rabbits.
- vlod 5y agoIsn't a control group used to negate this?
- lovemenot 5y agoAssuming both your parent and your comment are correct (and no other controls), then the experiment tells us the effects of the substance on populations that are disproportionately predisposed to cancer. Surely, not very infourmative in a cancer study. Note, I don't know whether these assumptions actually hold. Just taking it on its face.
- fsckboy 5y agoI believe he's referring to the hypothesis (I think tested) touted by Bret Weinstein that lab mice breeding has led to strains with extremely long telomeres, a feature that makes them resilient to all sorts of cellular damage, but makes them also susceptible to cancer; Bret's point being that they aren't good for either cancer nor non-cancer research. Lab mice breeders may have responded to this idea, but he alleges it's been swept under the carpet, too many studies at stake. Or something like that.
- dnautics 5y agoThat's deliberate. Cancer usually hits humans on a timeframe that is longer than the normal lifespan of mice, so an exact 1:1 experiment is likely to never see anything, not to mention too long to be a reasonable experiment to risk in either direction. Science per day is not cheap.
- msrenee 5y agoThere are a lot of different lines of mice used in the lab. Generally the incidence rate of cancer is pretty consistent in the lines used for cancer research. In addition, most cancer studies test for whether there is an increase in cancer rates from the baseline for the mice. For example, you'd purchase 100 mice all from a specific breeding line. You'd randomly choose 50 of those mice to expose to experimental conditions. The remaining 50 would be treated in exactly the same way except for the variable being tested. This is the control group. For example, sticking with aspartame. You'd take 100 mice and randomly select 50 to be exposed to aspartame. All 100 mice would be kept in the same type of cage, receive the same amount of the same food and water from the same source, but the 50 experimental group mice would have aspartame added to the water. Even better would be if there was a way to have them consume the aspartame in controlled amounts and monitor food and water intake to track whether they eat and drink more or less in response to the aspartame, as that could also potentially effect the cancer rate. It's not as simple as mice and rats are prone to cancer. They are. The people running these experiments are well-aware of that and go to great pains to ensure that that is not what's being measured.
- msrenee 5y ago*affect the cancer rate. Not effect. Still waking up here.