3 ms·
I've been hearing that type of argument since the 70s, after they banned saccharine. Let's suppose a chemical causes slow damage to the body, maybe greatly inc
by kagakuninja 3y ago
I've been hearing that type of argument since the 70s, after they banned saccharine.
Let's suppose a chemical causes slow damage to the body, maybe greatly increasing your risk of cancer or alzheimers if you drink a can of diet soda per day. How could we possibly know if it is safe?
We often test chemicals on rats, but the problem is that they only live a few years. No one wants to wait 20+ years to see the results of an expensive study on longer lived mammals anyway.
The solution is we feed the rats excessive amounts of the chemical and see if it causes problems. This isn't a great way to do it, but what other option would you suggest?
- throwaway1777 3y agoI would simply suggest we stop making any strong claims until we do know.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago> Let's suppose a chemical causes slow damage to the body, maybe greatly increasing your risk of cancer or alzheimers if you drink a can of diet soda per day. How could we possibly know if it is safe? The same way we know cigarettes are unsafe. You look at human cohort data and run variable adjustment models on it and control for confounders. How do cigarette smokers or diet soda drinkers do over time, especially in older cohorts? Are there any other products out there with aspartame that we can look at as well until we've isolated a risk model for aspartame by itself?
- Tokkemon 3y agoChemically, it doesn't make sense that there would be any harm in the first place. With properly functioning kidneys, the resultant chemicals get filtered out extremely quickly through the urine. It helps that most diet colas are also diuretic. The resulting methanol and/or formaldehyde don't stick around to cause harm. This is empirically backed up by the lack of adverse effects over massive populations and over decades.