3 ms·

Erythritol, an ingredient in stevia, linked to heart attack and stroke

2 points by crhulls 3y ago

NavinF 3y ago
Not this shit again. First of all, erythritol is not an ingredient in Stevia. They're two completely different substances. The author is probably thinking of Truvia which contains both ingredients. More importantly, literally every substance on the planet is "linked to heart attack and stroke" according to observational studies and animal studies. Most notably, sugar which is commonly replaced by erythritol in low-calorie food. When you can choose which confounders to control for instead of conducting an RCT on the general population, you can get any result you want and it'll always be statistically significant. >The results “should not be extrapolated to the general population, as the participants in the intervention were already at increased risk for cardiovascular events,” Rankin said. You don't say?
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  Yes, on that last paragraph: reads to me like maybe erythritol helps to expose underlying condition (diabetes etc), without affecting that condition itself much? Like how a software bug may be exposed if an app uses buggy library in not-used-before (but legal) manner? "More research needed" seems appropriate here.
  - NavinF 3y ago
    Naw even that's too charitable. See the linked paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9 "circulating levels of multiple polyol sweeteners, especially erythritol, were associated with incident (3 year) risk for major adverse cardiovascular events" Wow it's almost like people who are unhealthy know that they are unhealthy and that's why they attempt to reduce their calorie intake. The fact that unhealthy people are 2x as likely to have "adverse cardiovascular events" should not surprise anyone. Articles like this keep trying to find causation where there's only correlation. Trying to control for confounding factors one at a time is a fool's errand: https://gwern.net/everything https://gwern.net/everything
DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
Frankly, this steady trickle of "common factor X linked to bad thing Y: new study" posts here on HN and in the general press is not helpful. At all. It just causes one of two things in readers: overambitious disorders such as orthorexia and underambitious disorders such as apathy. That and probably more 'bipolar' ones like denial.

2 points by crhulls 3y ago

Not this shit again. First of all, erythritol is not an ingredient in Stevia. They're two completely different substances. The author is probably thinking of Truvia which contains both ingredients. More importantly, literally every substance on the planet is "linked to heart attack and stroke" according to observational studies and animal studies. Most notably, sugar which is commonly replaced by erythritol in low-calorie food. When you can choose which confounders to control for instead of conducting an RCT on the general population, you can get any result you want and it'll always be statistically significant. >The results “should not be extrapolated to the general population, as the participants in the intervention were already at increased risk for cardiovascular events,” Rankin said. You don't say?

RetroTechie 3y ago
Yes, on that last paragraph: reads to me like maybe erythritol helps to expose underlying condition (diabetes etc), without affecting that condition itself much? Like how a software bug may be exposed if an app uses buggy library in not-used-before (but legal) manner? "More research needed" seems appropriate here.
- NavinF 3y ago
  Naw even that's too charitable. See the linked paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9 "circulating levels of multiple polyol sweeteners, especially erythritol, were associated with incident (3 year) risk for major adverse cardiovascular events" Wow it's almost like people who are unhealthy know that they are unhealthy and that's why they attempt to reduce their calorie intake. The fact that unhealthy people are 2x as likely to have "adverse cardiovascular events" should not surprise anyone. Articles like this keep trying to find causation where there's only correlation. Trying to control for confounding factors one at a time is a fool's errand: https://gwern.net/everything https://gwern.net/everything

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago

Frankly, this steady trickle of "common factor X linked to bad thing Y: new study" posts here on HN and in the general press is not helpful. At all. It just causes one of two things in readers: overambitious disorders such as orthorexia and underambitious disorders such as apathy. That and probably more 'bipolar' ones like denial.